If there’s one thing I’d love world leaders to think about in connection with the UN’s International Day of Happiness, it’s that their measure of progress actually goes up with unhappiness and unrest. GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, which is still used as the principal indicator for development and progress, simply measures the exchange of money in society: more money[Read More…]
Billion-dollar disaster was the term used to describe the climate breakdown that rocked our world last year. Floods in Pakistan droughts in China and Europe and tropical cyclones in other parts of Asia and America. India in the month of October last year experienced extreme weather events on 30 out of 31 days according to India’s Atlas on the[Read More…]
In the backdrop of the 18th G20 Heads of State and Government summit to be held in New Delhi on 9th-10th September 2023, it becomes imperative to talk about India’s commitment to the environment conservation to preserve biodiversity, along with sustainable growth of the economy. As a part of an Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group (ECSWG) under G20, India[Read More…]
Popular Discourse of Science in the Twentieth Century The discourse of science in the twentieth century was dominated by understanding the atom, relativity, quantum mechanics, communication theory, space science and breaking the genetic code. Unfortunately some of the application of this science has been disastrous. It led to the atomic bomb, missiles and huge consumerism and waste of resources. It[Read More…]
Recent news articles about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research heralded the potential for “limitless” energy. Whenever I read that word limitless I wince, because I’ve learned to view it as a subtle instruction to readers to “please stop thinking now.” After decades of false promises to deliver limitless energy, we need to start thinking instead, and search for limits both obvious and hidden. Doing so[Read More…]
by Linda M. Nicholas and Gary M. Feinman New evidence and understandings about the structure of successful early societies across Asia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere are sweeping away the popular assumption that early societies tended toward autocracy and despotism. Archaeology has a more valuable story to tell: Collective action and localized economic production are a recipe for sustainability and broader well-being. The Mesoamerican city[Read More…]
One of the most important questions in the development debate is whether economic viability of small and marginal farmers can be strengthened in sustainable ways. This question is all the more important in a country like India where small scale farming is the most common source of livelihood. The objective of land reforms is to make available at least some[Read More…]
Law professor Mary Wood breaks down how people can protect their right to clean air, water, and land as well as fortify their climate change resiliency. With the reality of climate change becoming more apparent in the form of extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, and floods, it is clear that the future of all life on the[Read More…]
by A K Shiburaj/Helena Norberg-Hodge Helena Norberg Hodge is the founder and director of Local Futures, an organization working to revitalize cultural and biological diversity and empower local communities and economies around the world. Helena’s book ‘Ancient Futures’, which explains the traditions of the people of Ladakh and the changes in their culture, has received international attention. Translated into Malayalam[Read More…]
by Laura Lee Cascada, Nital Jethalal & Anita Krajnc We’re facing an unprecedented “code red for humanity,” in the words of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres—yet global action has stagnated. The world’s eyes are upon the international body now that the curtains have closed on COP27, its annual climate change convention, held in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, in November, and open at the Convention on[Read More…]
This is a small article addressed to beginners Sustainable Consumption Life on earth can be divided in two parts – plant life and animal life. The difference between the two is that plants produce their own food whereas animals, humans included, live directly or indirectly on food produced by plants. To sustain themselves, humans consume goods and services not only[Read More…]
The world today is facing a big challenge like the food crisis due to Covid, the climate crisis, the Ukraine war, etc. In such a situation, there is a need to promote the cultivation and consumption of millet to ensure food security. Millet is such a super food, which is a traditional nutritious and low-cost alternative to deal with the[Read More…]
by Debal Deb/ A K Shiburaj Dr. Debal Deb is an ecologist working with traditional farmers in eastern India to conserve indigenous seed diversity. Debal Deb, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science and a former Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, US, left his job at the World Wildlife Fund in the mid-1990s after failing to[Read More…]
Imagine the impact of a United States white-glove clean power system with costs benefits to individual homeowners in a Virtual Power Plant network (VPP) extending coast-to-coast with every household, en mass, involved in electrical power generation for the entire nation. It’s coming. It’s a future where everybody benefits as greenhouse gas emissions such as CO2 dissipate as homeowner electric bills[Read More…]
We must place true value on the environment and go beyond gross domestic product as a measure of human progress and well-being,” said United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres in June at Stockholm+50, a meeting convened by the UN to discuss the world’s environmental and ecological crises. It was an astonishing statement. This once-fringe idea of going ‘beyond GDP’ is finally appearing[Read More…]
One of the things I wondered about a lot during my first months of work in the food system was productivity. Growing up in a Minority World country, practically all of my food came from large-scale, industrial farms. As a result, I—like many others—believed for a long time that industrial agriculture a necessary evil, an unfortunate requirement given how many[Read More…]
by Stacy Jupiter, Teri Tuxson, Caroline Ferguson & Sangeeta Mangubhai Strong social networks foster resilience to food system shocks, both within and between Pacific Island communities. Pacific Islanders are no strangers to disasters. For millennia, island peoples have coped with and adapted to disasters like tropical cyclones and tsunamis, as well as unpredictable shifts in precipitation patterns, leading to droughts and floods.[Read More…]
In a recent report, the United Nations set out some top priorities everyone can practice in helping to counter climate change and keep Earth (humanly) habitable. Here is the short list: (1) eat a plant-based diet, (2) reduce unnecessary consumption and excessive waste (in the United States the reduction needs to be radical because the abuses are extreme and constant)[Read More…]
Humanity is facing a choice it never had to face before: either radically change how people relate to nature and to one another or face ecological ruination and general social collapse. For a long time there has been a stubborn problem of awareness about the ecological perils awaiting us and its systemic root. By now, most people have become aware[Read More…]
At a time of increasing concern over climate change, contributions of several women, farmers and innovators have given reason for increasing hope in mitigation as well as adaptation work in villages of India. When Leela Devi was married in Tilonia village (Ajmer district of Rajasthan), she had not heard of solar energy. But making use of the existence of solar[Read More…]
Introduction: The Transition Towns Movement In the year 2005, our capitalist societies saw the inception of a movement called ‘Transition Towns’. This is a grassroots network of communities that are working to build resilience in response to Peak Oil, climate change, food insecurity and economic instability. ‘Transition Towns’ is a catchphrase for environmental and social movements founded upon the principles[Read More…]
Palestinians are organizing CSA programs and small farms to become food sovereign and protect their culture against colonialism. Food sovereignty is an urgent issue in communities around the world, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic led to further disruptions in the already fragile global food supply chains. In Palestine, where traditional farming has been a way of life for millennia (and perhaps where farming began, according[Read More…]
Many thoughtful people of world are now concerned deeply about aggravation of several serious problems led by life-threatening environmental problems and accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time they realize that the earlier problems of inequalities and injustice are also worsening in many contexts. As life-nurturing conditions of our planet are also threatened there is greater urgency[Read More…]
We need change-making—both big and small—around the world, that challenges the structural causes of militarism, corrupt capitalism, and climate catastrophe, while at the same time, concretely creating an alternative system based on a just and sustainable peace. The past two and a half years of pandemic, food shortages, racial uprisings, economic collapse, and now another war are enough to make one[Read More…]
‘World Localization Day’ will be celebrated on 20 June. Organised by the non-profit Local Futures, this annual coming together of people from across the world began in 2020 and focuses on the need to localise supply-chains and recover our connection with nature and community. The stated aim is to “galvanize the worldwide localization movement into a force for systemic[Read More…]
During an extermination event – the first and only ever such event in the universe’s life – it is difficult to contemplate the relations between humans and the rest of nature. In 2021, Meral Cicek invited me to do precisely this through an essay for Jineoloji magazine, a publication of the women’s movement of Kurdistan. The pandemic, lethal as it[Read More…]
Is it possible to suggest a solution for climate change which does not mention the words fossil fuels even once? Before you dismiss this suggestion, kindly spare just two minutes for the very short viewpoint below. Very briefly, I recommend six changes to be taken up in the next decade as a top priority. Firstly, we have to take a[Read More…]
A Program Based on Justice, Equality, Peace, Harmony and Environment Protection Introduction In the middle of unprecedented world problems and many-sided internal distress, India must find a firm path based on equality, justice, meeting basic needs of all, strengthening creative livelihoods, social harmony and peace. As its present path is far from being such a path, there should be very[Read More…]
Movement Generation educates activists on the dynamics of social and environmental justice. In the mid-2000s, when the documentary featuring former Vice President Al Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth,” first alerted viewers that human activity was drastically altering the environment, and global warming would insidiously thaw the North and South poles and raise the sea levels, urban organizers like Mateo Nube heard[Read More…]
Not only is it possible to switch to renewables, but it’s also cheaper and would make economies less vulnerable. Yet, bizarrely, politicians and the fossil fuel industry, who are using the war on Ukraine to justify high gas prices, are now calling for more oil to be produced. Long used to cheap gas at the pump, Americans are experiencing serious[Read More…]
Modern sustainability evolved from forest management of the 18th century, and its ancient roots go back even further. Could it help with today’s climate crisis and lumber shortage? The proverb “necessity is the mother of invention” has roots that go back to Aesop’s fable “The Crow and the Pitcher” and to Plato’s “Republic.” It is realistic to assume that Hans[Read More…]
The most recent topic explored by the thinkers and activists who make up the Great Transition Network was “Technology and the Future”. As writer after writer posted their thoughts, it was heartening to see that almost all recognize that technology cannot provide real solutions to the many crises we face. I was also happy that Professor William Robinson, author of[Read More…]
Can those who advocate hitting the brakes on economic growth get their message across before it’s too late? Over the last three decades, a growing number of scientists and ecologists have argued that economic growth has long outstripped the capacity of the planetary ecosystem. They have developed numerous sophisticated models to demonstrate their point. They have boiled down the technical information—about[Read More…]
Akira Kurosawa (1910 – 1998), was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential film-makers in the history of cinema. Ikiru (‘To Live’) is a 1952 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film examines the struggles of a terminally ill Tokyo[Read More…]
There are many discussions going on regarding pollution. But the one aspect that is being overlooked in all these debates is our development model. It has a major contribution in increasing pollution. It considers material development as the measure of human development. This model, which is about 150-200 years old, emphasizes maximising production, so that people’s income increases and they[Read More…]
From time to time there are disturbing reports of environmental ruin in various green revolution belts of the country. The most prominent such belt is that of Punjab-Haryana-Western UP and Terai belt. Here from time to time we hear of very serious reports of water depletion and pollution, serious harm to soil health, burning of crop residues and other forms[Read More…]
Today December 5, is celebrated as the world soil day (WSD). The proposal for a global day to celebrate soil was first recommended in the year 2002 by the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS). Under the framework of the Global Soil Partnership, and the leadership of the King of Thailand, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) lent[Read More…]
Advocates for a Green New Deal are for a collection of admirable goals which it is usually taken for granted can be achieved within a capitalist economy and while the pursuit of economic growth continues. Here is an indication of the main reasons why these assumptions are totally mistaken. The fundamental assumption underlying these beliefs is that economic growth can[Read More…]
The progressive Odia daily newspaper ‘Dharitri’ has organised ‘Odisha Youth Conclave on Climate Change’ while celebrating its 48th birthday on 24th of November 2021. In a profit driven mass media industry with its rent seeking family ownerships, it is rare these days for newspapers to think about people and planet. The ‘Dharitri’ and its family deserves all appreciation for being[Read More…]
We need to change our ways! Unless you’ve been living in a cave in the last 40 years or so, you’d be getting a pretty strong message about that pretty much every day. No more “blah blah”, no more excuses, no more pseudo airy fairy technological fixes, we have to stop polluting, we have to stop destroying habitats, in other[Read More…]
While the need for checking climate change is being re-emphasized with a great sense of urgency, at the same time the inadequacy of the existing response and efforts to check climate change is also emerging clearly. Hence here we present a very different approach to checking climate change. This approach is based on a common program for the entire world,[Read More…]
As the world watches what transpires at COP26, the United Nations climate summit taking place this week in Glasgow, the U.N. has blasted governments and businesses for utterly failing to meet their climate obligations. There’s a sense that time is running out and radical change is the only hope–including a sweeping transformation of industrial agricultural practices to more sustainable and regenerative ones. At the same time, Indigenous peoples from[Read More…]
The increasing emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuels should be very widely welcomed, but the entire environmental issue cannot be reduced to just this. It is much wider. However our systems have suffered often from a one-point approach to solving complex problems, or may be they are not yet capable of a holistic approach. In the present[Read More…]
And climate change begins . . . “Three or four thousand years ago the gods began a migration from the lakes, forests, rivers, and mountains into the sky, becoming the imperial overlords of nature rather than its essence.” So writes Charles Eisenstein in Sacred Economics, defining a transition in human existence that has finally begun to haunt us — haunting some of us[Read More…]
In 2009 a commitment was made by rich countries to create an annual fund of 100 billion dollars to help the Global South in climate change mitigation and adaptation by 2020. Leaving aside the loans, the grants provided in the year 2020 under this fund actually amount to just about 16 billion dollars or so. Considering that climate change is[Read More…]
In the twentieth century nothing represented the working class culture more than the bicycle did. That is why the film ‘Bicycle Thief’ (1948, Italy, Director: Vittorio De Sica) remained the best film ever made for many years and still is one of the ten best films ever made. Jamshedpur with a population of 1.34 million is the largest and most[Read More…]
Ecological wisdom emanates from a deep awareness that, while humans are unique among all animals, they remain utterly dependent on their biophysical environment to sustain human life, and therefore must strive to live in harmony with the entire community of creation in order to ensure their own wellbeing. This is not what we are doing. We now face a situation of ecological overshoot due to[Read More…]
There is deepening concern worldwide at the increasing threats from climate change and the ongoing Climate Summit at Glasgow is in the middle of examining these serious issues. Scientists are giving increasing attention to finding smarter ways of climate change mitigation and adaptation. However adequate attention is not yet being given to properly tapping the potential contribution which ordinary[Read More…]
by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Bushfire smoke over the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge on 29 December. Photograph Source: Nick-D – CC BY-SA 4.0 Perhaps democratic eco-socialism starts with a need to solve the climate crisis and related crises. This requires a radical socio-ecological revolution that transcends capitalism through the non-violent dismantling of capitalism. It replaces capitalism with an alternative system based[Read More…]
Since its origin in the early 19th century by followers of Robert Owen, the term “socialism” has evolved to mean many different things to many different people and has been misused by dictatorships to describe their draconian management of capitalism. At the present time “socialism” is an unpopular word. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot have poisoned our understanding by applying the word “socialism” to[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies In country after country around the world, people are rising up to challenge entrenched, failing neoliberal political and economic systems, with mixed but sometimes promising results. Progressive leaders in the U.S. Congress are refusing to back down on the Democrats’ promises to American voters to reduce poverty, expand rights to healthcare, education[Read More…]
Climate change has been identified as the “defining issue of our time” by many of the world’s leading experts and the diagnosis of planetary health is dire. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has concluded that goals for achieving sustainability “cannot be met by current trajectories” and UN secretary-general António Guterres has referred to humanity’s “war on nature” as “senseless and suicidal”. The[Read More…]
Youth-led mass mobilisations in recent years have challenged the argument that young people have no interest in politics or democratic processes. Young people displayed a commitment to change and modelled an inclusive approach to participatory democracy through street actions, events, and debates as seen in the climate movement. Jasmine Lorenzini explains how young people challenge the norms of participation today,[Read More…]
In the face of climate change, children need positive stress as well as compassion to maintain mental health and inform their responses. Climate-related disasters are on the rise, and carbon emissions are soaring. Parents today face the unprecedented challenge of raising children somehow prepared for a planetary emergency that may last their lifetimes. Few guidebooks are on the shelves for this one, yet, but[Read More…]
Roadster Roadster is the standard or as in Bengal we call it the ‘Bangla’ cycle. Its design was perfected around 1890 and it has not changed significantly since then. Many people think it is old fashioned and they want to go for ‘fancy’ cycles. However the roadster has a great resilience and remains the choice for millions all over the[Read More…]
As the 20th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center approached, I wasn’t paying much attention. But then I received an email from my longtime colleague John Cavanagh, former director of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. It was a private message recalling the “Justice, Not Vengeance” initiative that the institute and YES! Magazine organized along with Harry Belafonte and[Read More…]
Before describing possible features of a future ecosocialism, it is worthwhile to consider why such a system is even needed. Why can’t the problems that ecosocialism would solve also be remedied within the current global capitalist system? Part I of this essay addresses that question by summarizing recent scientific reports on the state of the climate and extent of the[Read More…]
The path to an ecological civilization is paved by reclaiming the commons—our common home, the Earth, and the commons of the Earth family, of which we are a part. Through reclaiming the commons, we can imagine possibility for our common future, and we can sow the seeds of abundance through “commoning.” In the commons, we care and share—for the Earth[Read More…]
The baby-boom generation is ending its lap in the human race, and the Fridays-for-future generation is beginning its run. Generational shifts of power are symbolized by the image of passing the torch, but now what the older has to pass on to the younger seems not a torch but a time bomb, a legacy of crises. To find a way[Read More…]
Density is desirable in the modern world. Flourishing Cities and their thriving suburbs being living examples of the lure of density. The density which seemed alluring in the past rendered cities vulnerable and perilous amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. As the virus spread, the chorus against urban proximity grew louder. Lockdowns turning lively vibrant cities dormant, their survival being questioned,[Read More…]
Even for the smallest ailment, people, these days, resort to medicine. They trust that medicines can ‘cure’ the root cause of the disease. Some people take refuge in medicines even without any detectable illness. Nowadays, the SOLUTION to all the PROBLEMS is prescribed in the form of medicines. The answer to everything must be a ‘product’ – this is a[Read More…]
From the houses we live in to the food we eat and the education we receive, living a good life requires materials and energy. For many, this means an increase in wellbeing requires an increase in resource use. This necessity has been used by some commentators to argue that eradicating poverty is at odds with the need to reduce emissions and tackle climate change.[Read More…]
This article is adapted from POWER: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival (New Society Publishers, September 2021) by Richard Heinberg Climate change is often incorrectly described as an isolated pollution issue. In this flawed framing, humanity has simply made a mistake in its choice of energy sources; the solution entails switching sources and building enough carbon-sucking machines to clear the atmosphere of[Read More…]
Given the current climate emergency and the broader ecological breakdown that looms, there are few issues more pressing than that expressed by the single word: enough. Yet, it is possible to satisfy humanity’s universal needs fairly—and keep the world livable. What is enough? Put that question to any economist or politician, and you are likely to get a blank stare in return.[Read More…]
In their new book, authors Rupa Marya and Raj Patel explore how capitalism and colonialism have caused sickness and how Indigenous knowledge can offer healing. Multiple planetary crises are breaking out simultaneously: a global pandemic, heat waves, deadly floods, disappearing biodiversity, failing infrastructure. To authors Rupa Marya and Raj Patel, these crises—and their solutions—are intimately linked and ought to be viewed[Read More…]
The culture of civilization is a mass suicide pact this may seem a frivolous statement but let me hold your attention for a moment. There are 8 billion people on the planet almost all who are in favor of growth, progress, uplifting and such. Now this urge for growth has no upper limit. We could call this infinite growth. Thus[Read More…]
Abstract The stability of the Earth’s ecosystems, and hence the future of the human species, depends on people recognizing and responding to multiple, cascading social and ecological crises that can easily overwhelm our imaginations. We need to cultivate restless and relentless minds to deal with unprecedented analytical questions and moral challenges if we are to go beyond the failed approaches[Read More…]
While the importance of increasing renewable energy particularly solar energy is now widely recognized, there is need also for giving more importance to its decentralized spread. There has been a tendency of placing more dependence on mega projects taken up by big business houses for expanding solar power capacity in several countries including India, but this can have several[Read More…]
We cannot eat money and there are no winners on a dead Earth. Science tells us that we now have fewer than 10 years to reduce the human burden on Earth or trigger tipping points in Earth’s natural systems from which there is no return. Most discussion centers on the climate emergency, but we also have crises related to air, water,[Read More…]
With a harrowing new IPCC report, a global pandemic with no signs of abetting, and the ongoing humanitarian disasters left in the wake of war and conflict, it is easy to feel pessimistic. But in the necessary quest to push beyond the current limits of imagination and politics to foster solidarity beyond the state, we can still find grounds for[Read More…]
In the wake of interlocking global crises, we must remember that capitalist crises (of profitability or legitimacy or both) have led to collective action (revolutions, social movements), which in turn has sometimes compelled states and ruling elites to enact people-oriented welfarist policies. Let’s note, however, that since the 1980s, the ruling elites have refrained from enacting such policies; instead, they[Read More…]
To build a different system—one that values healthy soils, biodiversity, clean water, and human capital over exploitation and profit at all costs—we must invest in the knowledge that supports it. Soil scientist E. Britt Moore drives home the foundational nature of soil to his undergraduate students with an etymology lesson. Human, he tells them, comes from the Latin humus, or soil.[Read More…]
Given the current climate emergency and the broader ecological breakdown that looms, there are few issues more pressing than that expressed by the single word: enough. What is enough? Put that question to any economist or politician, and you are likely to get a blank stare in return. In a society devoted to continuous economic growth, there is no way to[Read More…]
Callum Alexander from Scotland recently contacted me with a few queries about renewable energy. I thought they were interesting questions that might occur to others, so I asked his permission to publish our dialog. Callum: If you replace a coal- or gas-fired power plant with a solar and/or wind farm (with a back-up reliable energy source), will you reduce or[Read More…]
Three new research articles wrestle with the question of nitrogen (N) availability in organic farming. All three are based on the indisputable fact that nitrogen availability is the factor that makes the biggest difference between organic and conventional farming. It is often claimed that half of the global food supply is made possible by the use of chemical fertilizers, but[Read More…]
From genetic engineering to geoengineering, we treat nature as though it’s a machine. This view of nature is deeply embedded in Western thought, but it’s a fundamental misconception with potentially disastrous consequences. Climate change, avers Rex Tillerson, ex-CEO of ExxonMobil and erstwhile US Secretary of State, “is an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions.” This brief statement encapsulates how[Read More…]
We have a dark wicked side. It controls many of our thoughts and actions. It ensnares the smart and the dumb, the privileged and the non privileged, the healthy and the sick. In today’s world it undermines many of our economic, social, political, philosophical and religious structures. It may be about to end our life on this Planet. This Essay defines it[Read More…]
Urban areas are generally perceived to be expanding at the cost of displacing villagers and destroying villages. Even if their houses can be retained, villagers still lose their farms, farming and related livelihoods, being left only with cash compensation for purchased/ acquired farmland. Even if they are not cheated, as is quite often the case, and manage to get adequate[Read More…]
A land tenure system that has existed for hundreds of years and remains relevant even in the twenty-first century is the Crofting system. Crofting is a traditional form of land tenure and small-scale food production system, specific to the Scottish Highlands, the islands of Scotland and earlier on the Isle of Man. Croft, Crofter and Crofting – these three are[Read More…]
“ They had never in their short lives had nice things to eat . They were young and their palates were untrained,[Read More…]
At this time ecological thinkers are emphasizing systems, especially as these are defined by systems theory. This interdiscipline is a life-saving departure from traditional reductionist methods in science but has yet to be made relevant to people’s individual everyday conduct. The objective of this essay is to develop the notion of systems to explain how people can act systematically now[Read More…]
Here is the existential question of our Age: Is there a way for us to break out of our downward ecological spiral? The answer: Yes. But first we will have to examine all of those existing patterns of our thought and behavior we have believed to contain “inherent truths” that are now an existential threat; our lifestyles, our economics, our political systems,[Read More…]
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions[Read More…]
In recent years there is demand for bicycle lanes by a section of the bicycle community in India. It comes mainly from Metro cities and people who demand are also younger people who use fancy/professional bicycles and are members of various bicycle clubs. Ordinary people who use the standard/roadster/Bangla cycles do not appear to be part of this group and[Read More…]
I suppose I could have titled this writing Applying Nonviolent Noncooperation to Pernicious Consumerism, or to Malignant Normalcy. Notwithstanding, here are my thoughts…. For as long as it remains profitable NOT to find or accept solutions to planetary problems, those who possess economic and political power will not allow solutions. Looked at from another side, it is the same as[Read More…]
While the governments chant the mantra of “leaving no one behind”, it is ironic that they are abetting corporate grabbing of land and resources, which is pushing farmers out of agriculture. Corporations are exercising more and more control over food and agriculture and influencing public policies. The forthcoming United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021, tentatively to be held in September[Read More…]
“Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!… Accumulation for the sake of accumulation, production for the sake of production: this was the historical mission of the bourgeoisie in the period of its domination …” Karl Marx, Capital, Vol 1, Ch 25 The world is threatened with environmental disaster and capitalists hope to make a killing off of it. Fossil[Read More…]
Ecological and social conditions are mostly ignored in a system in which profit is the goal Fred Magdoff, Professor Emeritus, University of Vermont, Plant and Soil Science, in an interview conducted by Farooque Chowdhury in June 2021, discusses aspects of capitalist agriculture, and politics with the agriculture system. The interview was conducted in view of Fred Magdoff’s (with Professor Harold van Es)[Read More…]
Food nourishes life. Our farmers produce more than enough food to feed all the people on the planet but due to socially unjust and ecologically unsustainable food systems, many people are forced to go hungry. Moreover farmers who help nurture life, continue to struggle for their livelihoods and human rights. In lead up to 2021 World Localization Day, farmers from[Read More…]
What will life be like after peak oil, in an age of major climate shifts? Hollywood movies often depict it as a bleak, dystopian world where each day is a struggle to survive after every system we depend on has been stripped away. Unfortunately, that version of the story seems to be on track so far. Despite mounting scientific consensus on[Read More…]
I first met Indigenous wisdom keepers as a child. After days of off-road driving to the Gran Sabana in Venezuela, we had arrived at the ancestral lands of the Pemón people, where they still lived. “Go fill up your thermoses with water from the river,” my father said. As I got out of the car with my round, red canteen[Read More…]
Written by Kunzang Deachen, Chozin Palmo and Jigmet Singge Ladakh – high on the Tibetan Plateau at the northern extreme of India – is the place we call home. The vast majority of Ladakhis are villagers, who have, for centuries, provided for most of their physical and emotional needs through interdependent webs of relationship with the land and with community. We[Read More…]
Introduction Our ability to achieve a livable future for all depends on whether we can foster an unprecedented degree of social learning. There is no change without learning, and no learning without change. But with the stakes higher than ever before, time is worryingly short. How, under such urgency, do we effect such a large-scale paradigm shift? Formal education systems[Read More…]
Written by Abhay Jain and Sandeep Pandey As Covid consumes human life in a very conspicuous way we are confronted with additional problem of disposing off human corpses. Cremation grounds are lit with continuous pyres, graveyards are running out of land and now Ganga has become a mass grave potentially polluting its water. In India, one estimate reveals that funeral[Read More…]
Aggressive forms of capitalism are not only snatching jobs ruthlessly but in addition are also increasing job related discontent, frustration and alienation. At the same time there is growing yearning for forms of economic organizations which can provide more satisfactory, stable, sustainable and creative livelihoods. In this context cooperatives should be getting increasing attention. However organization of cooperatives cannot[Read More…]
The Green New Deal has attracted perhaps the greatest attention of any proposal for decades. It would guarantee Medicare-for-All, Housing-for-All, student loan forgiveness and propose the largest economic growth in human history to address unemployment and climate change. But the last of these hits a stumbling block. Creation of all forms of energy contributes to the destruction of nature and[Read More…]
Human beings were bequeathed a bountiful and beautiful planet as their home and there is enough for all of us to lead a satisfying life, while also providing enough for other forms of life. But there is overwhelming scientific evidence now that this has been messed up badly, mainly by the more selfish and powerful members of humanity, with the[Read More…]
Here are two lists of changes that can and should be made, restoring this Earth home more fully to a habitable, life-diversified, and evolving planet. Outward behaviors everyone can practice and contribute to: Reduce and eliminate uses of fossil fuels. Support and participate in clean energy alternatives. Reduce and eliminate non-biodegradable plastics. Support and participate in oceanic and fresh water[Read More…]
According to recent official data of Himachal Pradesh government, its efforts to spread natural farming practices among farmers have led to 56 per cent reduction of costs of farmers and 27 per cent increase of income among farmers who adopted these practices. This happened under the natural farming prosperous farmers scheme ( prakrit kheti khushhal kisan yojana). According to leading[Read More…]
The concept of swadeshi played an important role in the freedom movement in India in opposing colonial exploitation, but as was emphasized by Mahatma Gandhi even then, we should also look at this concept in terms of its continuing relevance even after the end of colonial rule. It is good to see that this concept is still mentioned and discussed[Read More…]
One of the first ways in which a city gets judged is by its greenery. However it is well to remember that aspects of urban greenery at first glance can be quite deceptive. There may be big lawns with very colorful flowers on various sides. But a question worth asking is the extent to which these have involved heavy inputs[Read More…]
In early fall 2020, I took a break from intense work on textbook preparation to immerse myself in nature, in the form of a month on the Olympic Peninsula. I spent periods of good weather in the backcountry, and therefore didn’t bother carrying a tent along in my already-too-heavy backpack. Somehow sleep is more precious when there’s some chance of[Read More…]
Social movements in the context of rural areas have generally been discussed at two levels. Both involve a plea for justice, or a reduction or removal of perceived injustices. Both are highly relevant. Firstly, there are movements which relate to perceived injustices of an external agency. The external agency may be the government or a private party, or a collusion[Read More…]
The commons is a concept originally used in England during the Middle Ages to designate shared areas (mostly woods and pasture lands) that peasants collectively managed to access basic resources such as firewood, foraged food or grazing for their cattle. In a mostly rural society, peasants relied on the commons for survival. In fact, the appropriation and plunder of the[Read More…]
A 2018 paper by Bar-On, Phillips, and Milo in PNAS contains a fascinating figure (Figure 1) that bears staring at for some time. It shows the dry carbon biomass distribution of various forms of life on Earth. Plants account for 450 Gt (giga-ton; 1012 kg) of mass, while the sum of all animals adds to 2.5 Gt. Humans comprise only 2.4% of animal mass[Read More…]
When Yogesh Gandhi set up his medical store in Phaltan about 100 km from Pune in Satara district of Maharashtra, he invited his uncle, natural farmer Babulal Gandhi, to make an inauguration speech. “We should not be having medical stores in our cities – we should instead provide good food and a clean environment, one that fosters health and well-being.[Read More…]
Just as it is important for a journalist to report about problems, similarly it is important to report about achievements . While writing about agriculture for the greater part I have been reporting about problems because the overall strategy of farm development in India has been so problematic in terms of raising economic and environmental costs. But whenever I[Read More…]
A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, in which I have tried to contrast the world that we experience today, filled with terrifying existential threats, such as catastrophic climate change, pandemics, all-destroying nuclear war, and the threat of large-scale famine, with the world that we would wish it to be. The[Read More…]
The dominant class writes our history from their own perspective, therefore its harsh brutal and dishonest, and that’s blame on our human nature to absolve our masters. We are unaware of our entrapment in that harsh competitive society that’s bounded together by our compulsive socialness; we therefore see that setup as something of an asset as it still nurtures our[Read More…]
The ongoing farmers’ movement is one of the most widely discussed social movements of recent times. Despite this there is an uneasy feeling that in the middle of all the reporting, comment and discussion, we may still be missing the wood for the trees or giving less attention to some of the more basic issues. After all, we cannot forget[Read More…]
Hilly areas with their varying heights and land categories are known for their valuable bio-diversity which should be protected. The vast Himalayan ranges including hills and valleys, plains and peaks in particular are all the more important in this context. While the tendency to introduce genetic uniformity of monocultures was unfortunate everywhere, it was all the more harmful in the[Read More…]
Social activism has grown in India generally in conditions in which institutional support has been taken as the main source of support. However there are many reasons, including those relating to stability and durability of support, where in addition more options of community support should be considered. This can also lead to conditions in which social activists have less constraints[Read More…]
In many parts of the world there is a yearning on the part of farmers to break free from the increasingly exploitative grip of big business interests trying to dominate farming and food systems. As a result, despite the very worrying reality of the increasing domination of big business in many countries led by the USA, there is[Read More…]
Gold has long been considered the most important form of wealth. Diamonds are another. When oil became the most widely used source of energy, then people started referring to oil as the black gold. At various times since then, different important minerals have been highlighted as being very valuable. But the more these minerals are extracted in any country, the[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic has been a reminder of humanity’s inherent interconnection with the natural world. At the same time, the crisis threatens to further deprioritise climate action when it is needed most urgently. Joan Herrera i Torres, former leader of the Catalan Green party, proposes an eco-social agenda for post-Covid Europe based on three key elements: protecting biodiversity, valuing the[Read More…]
A significant number of people in world are working hard for making improvements in several aspects of life at several levels. They all help to create a better world. They help to reduce the distress of people and other forms of life, they help to create the conditions for more justice and equality, they protect environment in various ways[Read More…]
The beautiful phrase ‘Earth Without Borders’ has been used in more than one contexts from time to time. This is often used to convey the idea that those who work with a spirit of serving humanity should not be confined merely to serving their own country. This may be particularly true of a profession of doctors which ideally should[Read More…]
It is a basic principle of effective governance that it should be in accordance with ability to achieve the most important aims and tasks. In terms of this very basic definition, the huge, colossal failures of existing governance systems in our deeply troubled world facing unprecedented threats have been exposed in more and more glaring and disturbing ways in[Read More…]
The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda sets out global priorities, calling on countries to take “transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path”. The Agenda seeks to strengthen universal peace as part of a holistic agenda, bringing together social, environmental, and economic goals for sustainable development. Globally and in our local communities, we face complex[Read More…]
The rapid rise of Covid-19 has spawned a renaissance in socio-economic thinking about the best way to face the future, as mayors of cities throughout the world search for answers in the face of declining revenues while society demands more urgent help. Eureka! Amsterdam, the Venice of the North, discovers doughnut economics. With a click of fingers, it abandons the[Read More…]
There is something at the very core about us that needs to change. This cannot be emphasized often enough. We need to change how we think. How we think of ourselves, our place in creation, how we think of how we live, how we think of our relationships to the diversity of planetary life, to structures, elements, systems of nature[Read More…]
Ever since the dawn of human life, philosophers as well as common people have often pondered on the meaning and role , the goal and aims of human life. Many ideas have emerged, some interesting and valuable, others clumsy and risky. When humanity is examined not just in isolation but in integration with nature and environment, and all the millions[Read More…]
“Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce . Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow.” – John Steinbeck[Read More…]
Keeping in view the importance of checking climate change , all sectors must contribute to he reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In this context the extremely important contribution which the food and agriculture sector can make was underestimated initially but more and more research is now indicating that the contribution of this sector can extremely important. In fact if all[Read More…]
While agriculture has been much in discussion, the related work of food-processing has hardly received any attention, even though there is a huge scope for providing millions of rural jobs while at the same time also improving the nutrition situation very significantly by moving from present-day large scale big-business controlled food processing to food crop and other crop processing[Read More…]
While the critical importance of soil health for good farming is well-established and widely recognized, one aspect which has not received adequate attention is the link of soil health to nutrition of crops. This aspect needs to be explored further and the already available evidence should also be better appreciated and collected. In a note of the Food and[Read More…]
While issues relating to farmers are being discussed widely these days, we need to also discuss issues concerning landless farmer households. The fact that the landless also need to be provided at least small plots of cultivation land had a lot of acceptance till the not-too-distant past. Around this acceptance policies were framed, legislations were enacted and special drives for[Read More…]
Context Recently, as a part of the ‘Satyagraha series’ organized by SPI, I got an opportunity to listen to Dr. Shreekumar, who is an organic farmer in the south, and “student and practitioner of sustainability and just resource use”. He has a BTech (chemical engineering from Karnataka Regional Engineering College), Ph.D. (Indian Institute of Science), and has taught at NITK[Read More…]
Our young ones are our primary social responsibilities; we must ensure the planet is able to support them in the best health and spirit by maintaining a bountiful life, which was our responsibility when we lived in small groups that were able to know every one’s character. However, it’s impossible to know the character of every one in a large[Read More…]
There are many kinds of social movements and it is understandable that social movements are often preoccupied with their immediate demands which are likely to be of a very specific nature. At the same time there are some very basic concerns and priorities which should be common to more or less all social movements on an enduring basis. No matter[Read More…]
Stop. Think. To me, the first word that comes to mind is development. Cambridge Dictionary defines development as the process by which something grows or changes and becomes more advanced. In Economics, development is irretrievably tied with persistent growth with the most popular metric for measuring such growth: GDP. As a consequence, some countries are considered developed, and others, like[Read More…]
As the attention of people of India is focused on agriculture in the context of the farmers’ movement, this is a good time to initiate a debate on exactly what sort of alternative system of farming and food the country needs. It is not enough to criticize the existing system, we should be clear about what we actually need. If[Read More…]
By win, I mean win it all, not win a little. Win a new world. Win new defining social institutions. Win an end to injustice, inequality, subordination, and domination. Win an end to class, gender, sex, race, and all hierarchies that position some people above and other people below. Win equity. Win solidarity. Win diversity. Win self management. Win today’s[Read More…]
Ok, you all should know about blood transfusions. Watch any of the hospital shows on the boob tube and see how, in dire emergencies, they rush to do blood transfusions. Well, guess what? The depression level financial crisis for us working stiffs is here. Now, many of you still do not feel it, and thank goodness for that. Others among[Read More…]
Making political sense of the world can be tricky unless one understands the role of the state in capitalist societies. The state is not primarily there to represent voters or uphold democratic rights and values; it is a vehicle for facilitating and legitimating the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands. In a recent post, I wrote[Read More…]
The world has been changing fast, and so must social movements, to keep up with the emerging challenges. The most significant aspect of the fast-changing world is the emergence of very serious threats to the basic life-nurturing conditions of earth, and in keeping with the recognition of this as the most important issue, social movements must prepare in many creative[Read More…]
Although there is increasing recognition among many eminent scientists and learned scholars ( and of course many environment and disarmament activists ) that the world is now faced with a very serious human-made survival crisis, which has no comparison in the history so far, no credible road-map has yet emerged to avoid this many-sided, very serious crisis. We have some[Read More…]
Despite some local differences, the food and farming systems of most countries have suffered from somewhat similar serious problems in recent decades. Firstly, the problems of ordinary farmers have intensified despite government claims of increasing farm support. In many cases this is related to heavy escalation of costs, in turn leading to debts. Many have lost the status of owner[Read More…]
Since the onset of the global pandemic, the idea of a universal basic income has rightly received high-level political attention—not only within individual countries (such as here in the UK where it was at least debated by Parliament back in March), but also on the international level as endorsed by the United Nations. Never has there been such a need[Read More…]
The farmers’ movement in India has a historically very important role in protecting the small ( and medium ) farmer base of agriculture in the country. In recent times the movement has done well to oppose the corporatization trends as these ultimately present a threat to small farmers, as has been evident from the historical experience of many countries. This[Read More…]
Climate change provides the strangest example of a problem which is very widely and increasingly recognized by the best available scientific opinion to be a huge and definite danger to basic life nurturing conditions of our planet, and yet, in the decades after this became convincingly established, the emissions which cause this have been permitted to increase beyond dangerous limits.[Read More…]
In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic the crisis in Indian economy has accentuated and this deepening crisis has most adversely affected some of the poorest sections of society. While the need for government policy to deliver an adequate stimulus package for the economy is felt widely, there is wide difference of opinion regarding the precise form this should[Read More…]
Today in our deeply troubled world several problems have reached a situation where the basic life-nurturing conditions of our planet are threatened. These include serious environmental problems like climate change and the accumulation and the race for weapons of mass destruction. In addition there are the long-persisting problems of injustice, inequality and exploitation which are perhaps the most common cause[Read More…]
There is worldwide realization that food system has been becoming less safe and healthy. This is to a large extent because of the use of excessive chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Some of the inputs used in fact have been found to be so poisonous and harmful that it is a very sad surprise how their use in food and[Read More…]
A few days ago, I participated in a webinar that introduced me to Paul Chappell, a thoughtful peace activist with an extraordinary history. Born in 1980, Chappell grew up in Alabama, the son of an immigrant Korean mother and a violent mixed-race father traumatized by military service in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. His abusive home environment shaped in him[Read More…]
While the very pressing need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is very widely recognized at the scientific level, this can become an issue of mass mobilization only if this is also linked to justice based issues. When world level planning for reducing GHG emissions is linked to meeting the basic needs of all people, then this will be[Read More…]
Our children and their children’s grandchildren have the right to hold us to a high standard of accountability when their future—and maybe their survival—is hanging in the balance. They too deserve something more than a generation of political leaders who look at the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced and then sit on their hands. – Human Development Report[Read More…]
Why An Innovation That Can Reduce Vast Amounts of Farmers’ Costs, Foreign Exchange and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Still Continue to Suffer From Official Neglect and Apathy After Repeated Official Confirmation of Its Great Value? If an innovation can save billions of Rs. worth of diesel for farmers while at the same time cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions, then[Read More…]
The world has reached its limit. Humanity no longer resists. Who dares to defend this order full of injustice, shame, catastrophes, depredation? In the name of whom or what? What –ism can you defend today? It only remains to delve into natural history and human history in search of the essence of the species. To try to overcome it by tracing[Read More…]
For many, the pandemic has renewed our innate appreciation for and connection to nature. People have taken to growing food on windowsills and in backyard and community gardens. We’re cultivating yeasts to bake bread and getting outside more to walk, run, swim and cycle. In the face of uncertainty, nature brings solace and sustenance. Research shows time spent in forests — and[Read More…]
The number of people affected and displaced by conflicts and natural disasters has almost doubled over the past decade and continues to rise. Climate crisis is a major driver and amplifier of disaster risks and losses, even as armed conflicts compel hordes of people to flee their homes in search of safety. Slow onset disasters, like extreme temperatures and droughts,[Read More…]
Other than rock, water, and ice, our world consists entirely of ecosystem products and services, those biologically essential constructions of the ecosphere that keep everything alive and functioning. From our myopic human perspective, we tend to view these as global commons, as human ecosystem services that keep humans alive and functioning. This ignores the fact that they are the very[Read More…]
The economic and health crises which we are now experiencing form part of a more global systemic crisis, a consequence of the degeneration of our socio-economic order. Behind this degeneration lies (among other factors) climate change, ecosystemic destabilisation and reduced availability of materials and energy. What we have experienced in the last few months (huge fires in Australia, California and[Read More…]
The Corona crisis has reminded humans once again that they are just one species in nature like any other species – a truth they always tend to forget, knowingly or unknowingly. Nature had been enabling the evolution, sustenance and growth of millions of life species over millions of years that resulted into a grand, unified web of life. The secret[Read More…]
Dileswari, who is earning praise from locals for her dedication during the lockdown, underpins the importance of education and why it cannot wait till the schools reopen Balangir, Odisha: At the height of the pandemic, Dileswari Dharua, a 21-year-old intermediate college student from Balangir district hails as a Good Samaritan for her dedication in teaching the academically low performing children,[Read More…]
Who is “we”? We humans have made a mess of things, which is readily evident if we face the avalanche of studies and statistics describing the contemporary ecological crises we face. But even with the mounting evidence of the consequences for people and planet, we have not committed to a serious project to slow the damage that we do. One reasonable response to those statements is, “Who is ‘we’?”[Read More…]
Kandhamal: Two girls from the tribal-dominated Jhimaghia village of Kandhamal districts have stepped up to teach tribal kids when they saw that children of the village are deprived of education after the lockdown was enforced to contain the COVID19 outbreak. Jyotsnamayee Naik (23) and Bidhata Pradhan (22) are the two recent graduates from the same village who took up the[Read More…]
The real downside of the green-profit narrative has been that it created the assumption in many people’s minds that the solution to climate change and other environmental dilemmas is technical, and that policy makers and industrialists will implement it for us, so that the way we live doesn’t need to change in any fundamental way. That’s never been true. The[Read More…]
What does civilization stand for and what it has produced over its four to five thousand years of its existence. In Western Europe from the earliest civilised times those societies were supported by the labour of slaves until the Christian era. Yet we highly value the work of intellect whose lives were supported and nurtured by slaves before the end[Read More…]
I am adamant about this topic. I know that the only way forward is to limit ourselves in resource and energy use. In that vein, I wrote to the USA Sierra group that was touting electric cars: “I respectfully disagree with you. From where does the majority of our electricity derive? The answer is fossil fuels. That is obvious. So[Read More…]
As we pick up the pieces of the shattered economy, the route to the Great Transition becomes clear: we need to recapture and democratize money as a lever for resource allocation and collective power. A quick survey of the GTI scenarios and the world around us will show that we slid from Conventional Worlds to Barbarization in the first three months of[Read More…]
Root Cause: I don’t know if it is right to attribute this to the education system and societal values but the most important thing that is sought after in life is ‘career’ and ‘money’. Because let’s face it, it is only after possession of this that you can afford the most sought after livelihood, you can enrol your child into[Read More…]
By Vivek Sinha, Parijat Ghosh, Dibyendu Chaudhuri Introduction Sukanti Oraon of Jana, a village in Gumla district of Jharkhand, clearly remembers the day her Self Help Group (SHG) was formed. It was the 25th of November 1995, Saturday. Women of this Adivasi village came together to form SHGs with guidance from PRADAN, a national level Non-profit. Like many other villages[Read More…]
In a recent committee meeting at my institution, I heard a colleague say: “Our job is to prepare students for the world.” This comment wasn’t intended as an earth-shaking revelation, but it nevertheless caught my attention and got me thinking. On the surface, the idea appears to be simple and non-controversial, even banal. Those of us who are associated with[Read More…]
In the first article of Crisis Management, discussing the solutions “Adopt a Village” was an idea shared. This thought is not just for doing social service but also to improve the financial conditions of those villagers, establishing small scale industries, creating employment opportunities, overall to contribute to the country’s GDP. In an article of EPW written by Prof. Arun Kumar[Read More…]
Co-Written by Bibhubanta Barad. Parijat Ghosh and Dibyendu Chaudhuri Introduction It was a sunny summer morning in 2017. Self Help Group (SHG) members of Jana[1] congregated beneath the tamarind tree, their usual meeting place. Some men also were sitting there and the SHG members were taking loan to purchase inorganic fertilizers and hybrid seeds. They were discussing whether they would[Read More…]
Co-Written by Emily Kawano and Julie Matthaei The COVID-19 pandemic has upended our world. It has laid bare the inequity, the limits, and the failures of capitalism. The door to a better future beyond capitalism, already cracked open by the Great Recession, has been pushed open a little wider. Things that seemed impossible a few months ago now seem both[Read More…]
Senior activist Medha Patkar launched a youth led, Towards A Better World campaign, in an online session where several youth leaders of Fridays For Future (a global movement led by Greta Thunberg) and other youth activists took part. We must change our life, lifestyle and sources of livelihood for a sustainable and just development, said Medha Patkar. “People should commit[Read More…]
An assortment of organically grown produce lay out at a Farmer’s Market Prior to this pandemic summer, every year from May to November — there was something magical about waking up on Sunday mornings. I could walk three blocks from my house to the open space under large Walnut trees near the Hospital to get a week’s worth of organic[Read More…]
Since the 1960s, how many movements have excitedly exploded into existence, only to later morbidly melt away? In contrast, how many movements have constantly interminably grown and strengthened over time? The answer, best we can tell, is that most movements have rapidly grown during their initial stages, only to lethargically decline later. Most movements gloriously birth and later ingloriously die.[Read More…]
Kenneth E Boulding, an English-American economist and an interdisciplinary philosopher once said; “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” Further, he added, “unfortunately, we all are economists.” Boulding made this statement in 70’s. Sad to say that, we still adhere to the illusion implied by Boulding for[Read More…]
According to statistics from the World Health Organisation, the number of coronavirus cases being reported worldwide remains significant. For example, in the 24-hours between 9th and 10th July, over 200,000 new cases and 5,575 deaths were reported globally with the highest occurrences in the US, Brazil and India, followed closely by large swathes of Asia, the Middle East and South[Read More…]
What we have already done to our planet by maintaining economic growth. We have and are over populating it, which is reducing our per capita of resources and our functionality. But worst is we must grow the economy and to do that we must burn more fossil fuels, which’s changing the biosphere that increasingly retains heat that’s raising the planet’s[Read More…]
Ambassador Lamberto Zannier of Italy took up the mandate of OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities on 19 July 2017. Before taking up the position of High Commissioner, Zannier was OSCE Secretary General for two consecutive three-year terms, from 1 July 2011 until 30 June 2017. He spoke online at the “FROM VICTORY DAY TO CORONA DISARRAY: 75 YEARS OF[Read More…]
The visceral reaction to the murder of George Floyd unleashed deep personal reflection about racism, social justice, and fairness, and launched a powerful, broad based social movement. The pursuit of justice, fairness, and the shape of our common futures encompasses but also transcends the questions of racism and raises questions about the nature of our civilization. In this way, the[Read More…]
COVID-19, and before Covid everything else, has raised a question that is now percolating, and even reverberating. And then came a white knee crushing a Black neck. A dream so long deferred suddenly exploded in city after city. What’s next? From the social distancing, what? From the fumes and flames, what? From the bodies in morgues and the ashes littering[Read More…]
Co-authors: Er.M. Sree Rama, Dr M. Bapuji, M. Vijay kumar, M. Krishna Mohan Latest Situation of Covid-19 Mumbai alone, on June 17, reported 1,359 new Covid-19 positive cases and 77 deaths, taking the total number of coronavirus positive patients to 61,501 and the death toll 3,242, said Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Maharashtra reported 3,307 new cases, and the total number of[Read More…]
When Stan Cox was writing his book, The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can, he scripted these prophetic words: “The oft-predicted national decline in use of fossil fuels is nowhere to be seen, and it is unlikely to occur on its own, at least until the next economic meltdown.” He became one of[Read More…]
‘Is it possible for machines made from industrial civilization to save us from industrial civilization?’- Planet of the Humans General complaints against ‘industrial civilization’ in its various forms have always been the most reactionary of sentiments. Indeed, for a long time that was the very point. Longing for the days of pre-industrialization and was always the realm of aristocracies,[Read More…]
Odin, the Norse All-Father, is said to have hung from a tree for 9 days and sacrificed one of his eyes to acquire the knowledge of the world. These days, thankfully, all the Nordic people have to do to acquire knowledge is… well, live in the Nordics. The five countries which make up the Nordic region are: Denmark, Finland,[Read More…]
Co-Written by Arundhati Dhuru and Sandeep Pandey All the narratives of a progressing nation, Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘marching into the 21st century,’ Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ‘shining India,’ A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s ‘providing urban amenities in rural areas,’ Manmohan Singh’s achievement of 8-9% Gross Domestic Product growth rates and Narendra Modi’s ‘smart cities’ have crumbled in the wake of national level migrant workers’[Read More…]
Misfortunes never come singly, do they? The pandemic which has turned us into emotional cripples illustrates our culpable sin of negligence of duties and obligations to the environment. Like old age, it has diminished our power to live our life as we used to see fit. To speak of the growing sense of pessimism that has taken hold of us[Read More…]
The spectre of pandemic led crisis and its relationship with social transformation is not new. The Plague of Justinian and the Black Death had huge impact on weakening of feudalism in Europe. It did not pave the path for democratic movements in Europe but made people conscious about the difference in sufferings. The masses suffered in different plagues while the feudal[Read More…]
Co-Written by I.D. Khajuria and Sandeep Pandey As the humans stayed inside for close to a month and a half since the announcement of lockdown in the wake of coronavirus threat, most people observe that life seems to have start breathing in nature. The air is fresh, trees look more green and rivers are cleaner. It is a further and[Read More…]
You poisoned my sweet water. You cut down my green trees. The food you fed my children Was the cause of their disease. My world is slowly fallin’ down And the airs not good to breathe. And those of us who care enough, We have to do something……. (Chorus) Oh…….oh What you gonna do about me? Oh…….oh What you gonna[Read More…]
The great thing about the COVID-19 crisis is that the bourgeoisie has been revealed to be sheeplike in their behaviour, which is very good news for climate justice. An example comes from India. When the Government called for a lockdown, the 15 million tax payers in India took to home isolation like fish to water. If India had been the[Read More…]
Despite the misleading title, I will not talk to you today about the coronavirus, but of that other, far more insidious crisis that we cannot hope to solve with a vaccine. The global ecological crisis: a crisis in which we are the virus. I would like to share with you some brief reflections on human agency, human nature and their relationship with the possibility[Read More…]
Co-Written by Sayan Dey and Malati Sunar Introduction: An Overview This article is a continuation of the arguments about the importance of ecological consciousness as a powerful antidote against future pandemics, which we have put forward in the article “Why Bhutan Is An Outlier In The Fight Against Coronvirus?” In the previous article we have mentioned about the ‘green school’[Read More…]
We see clearly what is near to us There is a remarkable contrast in the way that governments around the world have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and the way that they have responded to the climate emergency. The pandemic, which indeed represents an extremely grave danger to humanity, has produced a masive global response. Borders have been closed, airlines[Read More…]
Capitalism gathered together resources, labor, and capital to start an industrial revolution that brought prosperity and elevated standards of living to much of the earth’s inhabitants. Once in motion it generated additional capital that gathered more labor and more resources in a perpetual cycle of increased production that constantly benefitted populations. The achievements did not occur smoothly, they sputtered from[Read More…]
We live in a world in extreme crisis. By the estimates of the Global Footprint Network, the human species currently consumes at a rate 1.7 times what Earth’s regenerative systems can sustain. Yet billions of people face a daily struggle for survival that strips them of happiness and fulfillment of their human potential. A growing concentration of financial wealth puts ever[Read More…]
The ABF House stands on a corner, halfway up Sveavägen, in the centre of Stockholm. Across the street is the party headquarters of the Social Democrats. Two doors along, the Grand cinema where Olof Palme spent the evening in February 1986 that would end with his assassination. The last of the three great Social Democratic prime ministers whose rule stretched[Read More…]
Co-Written By Brian Czech and Riccardo Mastini Limits to Growth and the Environmental Movement No later than the 1960s, scholars wrote in rigorous terms of the limits to economic growth. Europeans such as E.F. Schumacher, Americans including Herman Daly, and European-born Americans (most notably Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Kenneth Boulding) set the stage for later studies in ecological economics and sustainability[Read More…]
The ecological fabric of being is fraying and Earth is at imminent risk of become uninhabitable. The collapse of major ecological systems that provide for the well-being of all life is intimately entwined with the personal despair, and political and social chaos, roiling global societies. Many growing social ills such as poverty, violence, and addiction are ultimately driven by environmental[Read More…]
The inclusion of climate activists Extinction Rebellion (XR) by police in a guide to “ideological extremism” marks a serious escalation of the assault on democratic rights. Although the guide has now been withdrawn, the Conservative government has still defended including XR. The Guardian reported last week that Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE) had included XR among extremists requiring reporting to the[Read More…]
The prize has gone to three people studying how the poor can derive more benefit from existing “development” practices. It sees no reason to question the existing market and growth-driven economy and its derivative, development theory. It doesn’t threaten the massively unjust and environmentally destructive global systems that keep billions in poverty. The 720,000 pound Prize has been awarded for[Read More…]
Don’t follow the money – change it! More on such a tremendous undertaking later on. Meanwhile little Greta and millions of other youngsters walking in her footsteps are crying out to us. How long can our only planet be sold for the ever-increasing profit and production that are ravaging it? How long can the human family permit itself to[Read More…]
How to live a more sustainable life? This question generates a lot of debate that is focused on what individuals can do in order to address problems like climate change. For example, people are encouraged to shop locally, to buy organic food, to install home insulation, or to cycle more often. But how effective is individual action when it is systemic[Read More…]
Imagine this rather typical SF scenario: alien invaders arrive on Earth. They are vastly superior in intelligence, technology, and most importantly, ethics. They quickly perceive that Earthlings are a dire mortal threat to the Earth’s biosphere. They reason that they must take decisive action soon, or else the Earth will meet its biological death. What are they to do? First,[Read More…]
Due to capitalism’s rapaciousness, our species is hurtling towards ecocide at a frightening pace. In the early twentieth century, tens of millions died under the Stalinist regime. We blame these deaths on the wickedness of socialism. Later, in Germany, around 6 million Jews were systematically murdered in gas chambers. We blame these deaths on the ills of fascism. At the[Read More…]
Thirty years ago, a friend of mine published a book called 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save The Earth. It described the huge environmental benefits that would result if everyone made some simple adjustments to their way of life. Six hundred thousand gallons of gas could be saved every day, for example, if every commuter car carried just one[Read More…]
Hydroelectric power from dams might be the thorniest question that proponents of the Green New Deal (GND) have to grapple with. Providing more energy than solar and wind combined, dams could well become the backup for energy if it proves impossible to get off of fossil fuels fast enough. An August 2019 forum on the GND included representatives from the Sunrise Movement, Renew[Read More…]
“We are in a new era to which I do not belong,” ex-President Calvin Coolidge confided to a close friend on a cold December day in 1932 when the country and the world were already in the depths of the Great Depression. A few weeks later, he punctuated that melancholic thought by dying. Coolidge was right. Within months of his death, President[Read More…]
Extinction Rebellion, XRest. October 31, 2018,has become a powerful force across the globe, almost overnight!!! It is the fastest-growing environmental movement ever. As such, it is only too obvious that “people get it” when it comes to climate change/global warming because they’re jumping aboard like swarms of locusts. In fact, XR’s truthful exposure of the climate crisis/global warming is single-handedly[Read More…]
The reasons why the Green New Deal won’t really work are fairly subtle. A person really has to look into the details to see what goes wrong. In this post, I try to explain at least a few of the issues involved. [1] None of the new renewables can easily be relied upon to produce enough energy in winter. The[Read More…]
Despite the furor over the Green New Deal (GND), many of its supporters have no idea of the wide variety of views on it, especially within the Green Party (GP), where it originated in the US. From June through August, 2019 Missouri Greens held public discussions contrasting at least three distinct GP views to those from the Democratic Party (DP).[Read More…]
We lost Gauri Lankesh to terrorism on 5th September 2017. This terrorism has a context. In this article I’ll be trying to put Gauri’s martyrdom into global context. When I started Countercurrents.org in 2002, the CO2 level in atmosphere was 370 ppm (parts per million). 17 years later now it is at 420 ppm. Recently scientists released a data that[Read More…]
I would like to announce the publication of a book, which reviews the lives and thoughts of some of the women and men who have addressed the crucial problems of ecology and sustainability that we are currently facing. I have tried to let them speak to us in their own words. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from[Read More…]
The climate crisis is turning average law-abiding people into raging law-breaking eco rebels, by boatloads. Extinction Rebellion (ER) is at the forefront, demanding that governments declare climate emergencies and take urgent action. In that regard, ER, which started in the UK, says government must reduce carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2025, or else! Social chaos will spring loose[Read More…]
The Green New Deal pivots on a central lie of continued growth, promising this growth and employment whilst pretending it can magic away the environmental and humanitarian consequences. The result of this is that on all three counts – infinite growth, reliance on fossil fuels, and colonial resource extraction – the Green New Deal is unable to challenge the prevailing[Read More…]
The beauty of the Gaian theology is that, unlike for ordinary theology, you don’t have to rely only on second-hand reports about the subject of your studies. Gaia exists, and you can perceive Her all around us. Then, the question is: what or who is She? As you know, the modern idea of Gaia as a denizen of the Earth’s ecosphere[Read More…]
Argument 1: Localism is inevitable. Globalization was made possible by long-distance transport, communications, and capital flows. It fits with widespread assumptions about progress and economic growth leading to a better future. But there are good reasons to think that our current bout of globalization is actually a brief, fragile, and highly problematic phase of human history. Societies seem to pass[Read More…]
Resistance to corporate rule at the policy level will need to be coupled with the generation of alternatives from below, to fill the gaps left by the departing old system. The Promise and Pitfalls of Localism The fact that the language of localism is being increasingly co-opted by authoritarians around the world is itself a sign of localism’s appeal. Left[Read More…]
David B. Lauterwasser writes: Very few people today think that our global civilization is on the brink of collapse. Most of the news consist of disturbing stories on increasingly overwhelming issues that, plainly spoken, seem impossible to solve. And yet, no one even recognizes that it is collapse that’s started to unfold all around us. Only the fewest today think that[Read More…]
A version of this essay was presented at the “Is the Future of Agriculture Perennial?” conference, Lund University, Sweden, May 8, 2019. The royal, prophetic, and apocalyptic traditions in the Hebrew and Christian bibles provide a compelling framework for understanding progressive intellectual and political work today, as we face the task not only of struggling to create a just and sustainable world[Read More…]
When it comes to heat, extreme weather, wildfires, and melting glaciers, the planet is now in what the media increasingly refers to as “record” territory, as climate change’s momentum outpaces predictions. In such a situation, in a country whose president and administration seem hell-bent on doing everything they conceivably can to make matters worse, the Green New Deal (GND) seems to offer at[Read More…]
The Climate Emergency is finally getting the attention of the media and the U.S. (and world) body politic, as well as a growing number of politicians, activists and even U.S. farmers. This great awakening has arrived just in time, given the record-breaking temperatures, violent weather, crop failures and massive waves of forced migration that are quickly becoming the norm. Global scientists[Read More…]
Homo sapiens is a creature of the earth. Understand that food is the tap root of life for the human species. There may be other factors that help sustain human life, but food is the ‘tap root’ for the growth of absolute human population numbers, just as is the case with other species of earth. Our problem is a biological[Read More…]
Commercial flights currently make up around 2.5% of global carbon emissions which is certain to be increased with increase in volume of air travel. According to European Environment Agency, an average plane trip emits 285 grams of carbon dioxide, while similar train journey would emit only 14 grams. Therefore, taking a train over plane do save the environment. The movement[Read More…]
[The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of Helena Norberg-Hodge’s new book Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness, published by Local Futures in July 2019.] For our species to have a future, it must be local. The good news is that the path to such a future is already being forged. Away from the screens[Read More…]
Action For Sustainable Development (Action4SD), a global civil society platform working on the Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Change, has issued an appeal in New York to #StandTogetherNow to for a Just, Peaceful and Sustainable World. This is released when the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on the Agenda 2030 is going on in New York. Sign here:https://action4sd.org/sign-the-statement/ In 2015[Read More…]
Walking down the high street of a place described as one of the UK’s most ethical towns, the first thing you notice is the absence of national chain stores and fast food outlets. Instead, you find a diverse mix of independent shops selling organic food, clothes, art, antiques and furniture, as well as cafes and restaurants and an abundance of charity[Read More…]
Undoubtedly, agriculture is a power intensive sector. Farmers predominantly rely on diesel and electric pumps for irrigation. However, the scale of use of diesel and electric pumps in the sector contribute to severe environmental problems. Diesel pumps depend on exploitation of fossil fuel resources, increase fuel cost for farmers and emit toxic fumes that pollute the environment and affect human[Read More…]
“The collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.” – David Attenborough Today’s economics, especially Economics 101, is a major source of humankind’s denial of the possibility of the calamity of all calamities, which our economy is engineering. Annually, millions of students around the world are forced to study textbooks that indoctrinate[Read More…]
Following the lead of the late Ulrich Beck in works such as Risk Society and Power in the Modern Age the time has now come to ask ourselves whether or not the Green party is already or is about to become a global political party. First a little background in theory. Beck was, of course, famous for introducing the idea[Read More…]
Ever since the ‘germ theory of disease’ was propounded by Louis Pasteur two hundred years ago, the world has understood bacteria as the cause of numerous infections, many of them deadly. The insight led to the advent of antibiotics, hailed as ‘magic bullets’ for their ability to treat infectious diseases effectively, and it was believed pathogenic bacteria had been conquered[Read More…]
Much of my creative work these days (and indeed for decades before) is to address the mounting and sometimes engulfing Earth Crisis within which we are all entangled; which threatens us daily and overshadows the future. Earth Crisis is not only Climate Change, although climate change is a major component of Earth Crisis. Other components of the ongoing global condition[Read More…]
Gaia – the living global ecological system – is collapsing and dying as human industrial growth overruns natural ecosystems and climate. Yet the biosphere can regenerate, as it has done before, given the time and space, free from human burning and cutting. As the twin emergencies of climate and ecosystem loss threaten the end of being, I join in calls[Read More…]
The non-enviro approach of mainstream politico milieu and unbridled profiteering agenda of economic agencies of the world have brought the world on the brink of irreversible ecological damages, to a stage where we beg for basics such as clean air, potable water, pure soil, healthy sun light. Bigger panic though is that the climate breakdown issue is being sidelined, because, [Read More…]
Like many people who have struggled to understand why human beings are driving the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history, which now threatens imminent human extinction as well, over many decades I have explored the research and efforts of a great many activists and scholars to secure this understanding. However, with many competing ideas from the fields of politics,[Read More…]
Capitalism successes are based on economic growth, attain and sustained by burning fossil fuels. The key one for nearly a century is oil, it’s involved in all our activities, and it’s what sustains world societies, also its gradually changing our benign planet to an unliveable one. Its due to two factors one been the emission of carbon dioxide, which keeps[Read More…]
International Mother Earth Day on 22 April each year was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2009. Its aim is to promote living in harmony with Nature and to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations. The concept of living in harmony with Nature was seen by the U.N.[Read More…]
Our modern industrial economy traces a straight line from resource extraction to manufacturing to sales to waste disposal. Since Earth has finite resources and limited ability to absorb pollution, the straight-line economy is unsustainable; it is designed for eventual failure. Why not make the economy circular, with waste from one process feeding into other production processes, thus dramatically reducing the need[Read More…]
Efforts to live more sustainably have been popularized by individuals, leaders, and corporations across the globe. While reports seem to indicate that people are more socially aware, the widespread popularization of the term ‘sustainability’ falsely leads us to believe that we are doing much more than we actually are. In reality, we are on a path of pseudo-sustainability. Most of[Read More…]
The Green New Deal bill is an audacious 10-year mobilization plan to move the U.S. to a zero-carbon economy. Bold and ambitious interventions like it are necessary, in the U.S. and elsewhere, if we are to unsettle the current complacency with climate breakdown. Academics like economist Robert Pollin, who kept alive the idea of a Green New Deal in the past years and[Read More…]
Ever since out first ancestor lit a fire, humans have been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Add to that the first herder because ruminants are another large emitter of greenhouse gas (GHG). Some people want to declare a national emergency and ban fossil fuels within ten years. How? I am for it and all ready to go. But please[Read More…]
“I believe that for a moment I thought the explosion might set fire to the atmosphere and thus finish the Earth, even though I knew that this was not possible.” These words of Manhattan Project physicist Emilio Segre, quoted by Richard Rhodes in his book The Making of the Atomic Bomb, refer to the Trinity blast on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo,[Read More…]
I recently had the opportunity to interview Masahiko Yamada, formerly Japan´s Minister of Agriculture and now one of the country´s foremost food sovereignty activists. We met at an international Economics of Happiness Conference in Prato, Italy, where Yamada delivered a keynote speech about the birth of a new citizens’ movement to protect Japan´s food-crop heritage from corporate take-over. Keen to learn more,[Read More…]
Co-Written by Gary Null and Richard Gale The recent release of the proposed Green New Deal is a template, an outline identifying some of the most crucial issues facing the nation regarding climate change and a wish list of measures to address those issues. It contains a variety of inspired agenda items, many of which have been voiced by the[Read More…]
Since the mid-1980s, Mexico has been a poster child for globalization. Through free trade treaties and structural adjustment policies imposed by international financial institutions, the country has been “liberalized” – opened up to unfettered corporate investment and imports – to an extent matched by few other countries. Though the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is the most well-known trade treaty[Read More…]
Only immediate climate action can save the future. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon. Here is a recent statement by Jakob von Uexküll, founder of the World Future Council: “Today we are heading for unprecedented dangers and conflicts, up to and including the[Read More…]
This article is part of a series on degrowth.info discussing strategy in the degrowth movement. The introduction to the series and an ongoing list of contributions can be found here. In a previous piece in this blog series, Joe Herbert and colleagues pointed out the “how to move towards a degrowth society” gap in degrowth discourse. As I have also come[Read More…]
A burgeoning save-the-climate effort called the Green New Deal, explains Vox’s David Roberts, “has thrust climate change into the national conversation, put House Democrats on notice, and created an intense and escalating bandwagon effect. … everyone involved in green politics is talking about the GND. … But WTF is it?” Roberts goes on to give a good summary, but no[Read More…]
Both the U.S. economy and the global economy have expanded dramatically in the past century, as have life expectancies and material progress. Economists raised in this period of plenty assume that growth is good, necessary even, and should continue forever and ever without end, amen. Growth delivers jobs, returns on investment and higher tax revenues. What’s not to like? We’ve[Read More…]
Many citizens throughout the world have concluded that our Capital Market system is an ecological Negative Zero Sum game driving human civilization toward an “end of time” apocalypse of horrific proportions. XXXXXXXXX With the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution that followed, the economic theory of Adam Smith relating to efficiency of an open and free capital market distribution of goods[Read More…]
An interview with Daniel Chavez. What are the commons and what is their political, social and economic relevance? In recent years, many researchers and social activists from very different countries, like myself, have rediscovered the notion of the commons as a key idea to deepen social and environmental justice and democratise both politics and the economy. This reappropriation has meant[Read More…]
When orthodox economists first encounter the idea of degrowth, they often jump to the conclusion that the objective is to reduce GDP. And because they see GDP as equivalent to social wealth, this makes them very upset. Nothing could be further from the truth. I reject the fetishization of GDP as an objective in the existing economy, so it would[Read More…]
An interview with Daniel Chavez Daniel Chavez / Photo credit Patricia Alfaro In recent years, many researchers and social activists from very different countries, like myself, have rediscovered the notion of the commons as a key idea to deepen social and environmental justice and democratise both politics and the economy. This reappropriation has meant questioning the vanguardist and hierarchical visions,[Read More…]
With Christmas coming up, household consumption will soon hit its yearly peak in many countries. Despite homely pictures of tranquility on mass-produced greeting cards, Christmas is more about frenzied shopping and overspending than peace on earth or quality time with family and friends. As with so much of our lives, the holidays have been hijacked by the idea that satisfaction,[Read More…]
Earlier this year, taking a front row seat at a church in Gary, Indiana, I watched as a young rapper, local food leader, and an arts educator beguiled a standing-room-only audience with a theatrical envisioning of their city in the year 2030. To the side of the stage, jazz legend Billy Foster and his trio added a lively soundtrack to[Read More…]
The circular economy has become, for many governments, institutions, companies, and environmental organizations, one of the main components of a plan to lower carbon emissions. In the circular economy, resources would be continually re-used, meaning that there would be no more mining activity or waste production. The stress is on recycling, made possible by designing products so that they can[Read More…]
By now you have probably read about the so-called “tech backlash.” Facebook and other social media have undermined what’s left of the illusion of democracy, while smartphones damage young brains and erode the nature of discourse in the family. Meanwhile computers and other gadgets have diminished our attention spans along with our ever-failing connection to reality. The Foundation for Responsible[Read More…]
If you’re seeking some good news during these troubled times, look at the ecologically sound ways of producing food that have percolated up from the grassroots in recent years. Small farmers, environmentalists, academic researchers and food and farming activists have given us agroecology, holistic resource management, permaculture, regenerative agriculture and other methods that can alleviate or perhaps even eliminate the global food system’s worst impacts:[Read More…]
Credit: Flickr/Eli Duke. CC BY 2.0. The emergence of interest in degrowth can be traced back to the 1st International Degrowth Conference organized in Paris in 2008. At this conference, degrowth was defined as a “voluntary transition towards a just, participatory, and ecologically sustainable society,” so challenging the dogma of economic growth. Another five international conferences were organized between 2010 and[Read More…]
Amazon has reached the far corners of the earth… and the highest elevations. Delivery men venture 11,562 feet up in the Himalayas to leave a package. While the company may serve a useful purpose in remote regions, its phenomenal growth also reveals that no town is immune from its less desirable consequences. The online retailer’s omnipresence has been all too apparent in[Read More…]
The vast array of consumer products available in the modern markets, needs of a large mass of compulsive buyers that merry-go-round in a spending spree. The great engine that produced the consumer goods, was born with the industrial revolution of the 19th-century. The industrial revolution and the phenomenon of mass consumption were preceded by the feudal age household economics and[Read More…]
I want to believe in eternal economic growth. Given what humanity is facing with climate change and other consequences of our collective consumption, it must be awfully comforting to have faith in a cornucopian future where no one ever goes wanting. Especially if all we have to do is more of the same, sticking to capitalism’s exploitative playbook. I used[Read More…]
Perhaps the main reason people reject the need for a steady state economy is some form of cornucopianism, the belief that technological progress will overcome all ecological and physical limits, allowing endless economic growth into the indefinite future. Cornucopianism has several flavors, and I will describe three: mainstream economics, eco-modernism, and singularity theory. Mainstream Economics Fuels Cornucopian Ideas First, let’s[Read More…]
This is a speech I prepared to deliver at the Solidarity Media Awards This award was bestowed upon Countercurrents.org and me for the courageous interventions in human rights and citizen’s rights. Let me make it very clear, I do not have any such claims. I’m doing whatever little I can in my limited capacity for humanity and other species on[Read More…]
When I ask an audience, “Who believes we are on a path to self-extinction?” nearly every hand goes up. It’s a sign of a growing awareness that humanity is on a path to self-imposed environmental and social collapse. For me, that awareness is a source of hope. I recently discovered an even deeper source of hope on a trip to South[Read More…]
William Nordhaus shaping vulnerable minds in his Yale classroom – Oct. 8, 2018. (Photo credit: Yale/ ©Mara Lavitt) How ironic for the Washington Post to opine “Earth may have no tomorrow” and, two pages later, offer up the mini-bios of William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, described as Nobel Prize winners. Without more rigorous news coverage, few indeed will know that Nordhaus and Romer are[Read More…]
Most people have passed through some kind of initiation in life. By that, I mean a crisis that defies what you knew and what you were. From the rubble of the ensuing collapse, a new self is born into a new world. Societies can also pass through an initiation. That is what climate change poses to the present global civilization.[Read More…]
Image credit: eyewashdesgin: A. Golden, flickr creative commons When the global financial crisis resurfaces, we the people will have to fill the vacuum in political leadership. It will call for a monumental mobilisation of citizens from below, focused on a single and unifying demand for a people’s bailout across the world. A full decade since the great crash of 2008, many[Read More…]
Disaggregating reported GDP growth to reveal the differences in growth by income class, as per the Schumer-Heinrich Bill, is a good idea. After all, telling us, say, that average income grew by 4% is not nearly as informative as telling us that the richest ten percent received the entire growth increment while the bottom ten percent suffered a decline in[Read More…]
The first vast work of “worldwide” occupation and predation of the Earth and its inhabitants was that begun in the sixteenth century by a number of European states (Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, England and France). After the First World War, new actors – no less conquerors and predators than the former (in particular, the United States, Soviet Union, Japan and[Read More…]
The solidarity economy is a global movement to build a post-capitalist world that puts people and planet front and center, rather than the pursuit of blind growth and profit maximization. It isn’t a blueprint but a framework that includes a broad range of economic practices that align with its values: solidarity, participatory democracy, equity in every dimension including race, class[Read More…]
In Brief Humanity stands at a precipice. Overpopulation, resource scarcities, degraded ecosystem functioning from pollution and biodiversity loss, and anthropogenic climate change are damaging the life-supporting capacity of the planet. Diminishing returns on fossil fuel energy investments, combined with their dwindling availability and environmental harm, threaten industrial civilization. Many people recognize the need to transition to sustainable, resilient ways of[Read More…]
In this piece, Helena Norberg-Hodge describes how economic globalization and corporate deregulation have contributed to the rise of authoritarian political leaders in the 21st century, and how rebuilding stronger, more diversified, self-reliant local economies can restore democracy and help us better meet our basic human needs. For those who care about peace, equality and the future of the planet, the[Read More…]
The depth of our dilemma is suggested by a remarkable essaypublished in New York magazine by David Wallace-Wells, “The Uninhabitable Earth,” which upset a lot of climate scientists and some activists by laying out some of the worst-case future scenarios that climate science forecasts unless our activism is visionary enough to bring about some of the better ones. The hard truth seemed to upset[Read More…]
What are the political implications of meeting the established human right for everyone to enjoy an adequate standard of living? In short, it necessitates a redistribution of wealth and resources on an unprecedented scale, which is why activists should resurrect the United Nations’ radical vision for achieving Article 25. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the most[Read More…]
The science behind climate change is well known: an overabundance of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, raising the average global temperature and causing widespread melting of glaciers and ice shelves that could raise sea level by one meter (a conservative estimate) to three meters (likely by the end of this century if we continue business as usual). The lack[Read More…]
We have little time to save our children. Life is facing extinction within the near future. In the last session we all stated our major concerns and what needs to be prioritised to improve our lives. We were given statistics that showed there’s both improvement on many vital measures and some worries. So it looks as if we are managing.[Read More…]
Our current economic systems have become addicted to “growth at all costs”, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) [i]. They assume that GDP growth is synonymous with increasing wellbeing and prosperity. However this approach has led to growing inequality, an escalating climate crisis, and the depletion of natural and social capital. We are no longer generating genuine progress[ii]. Our approach[Read More…]
Nate Hagens gave this talk on Earth Day on April 23, 2018 at The Land Institute, Salina, Kansas. What follows is an essay loosely related to the talk. The Human Predicament Around 11,000 years ago, as the last ice age ended, our ancestors – in no fewer than 5 locations around the world – took advantage of the new conditions[Read More…]
Indian cities are in crisis. Spend any length of time in a large city there and you will notice the overcrowding, the power and water shortages and, during monsoon, the streets that transform into stinking, litter-strewn rivers. At times, these cities can be almost unbearable to live in. Little wonder then that the concept of ‘smart cities’ is taking hold among[Read More…]
Ted Howard’s remarks to the Environmental Funders Network in Cambridge, England, on February 2nd, 2018. These prepared remarks have been lightly edited for publication. Good afternoon. I want to begin by thanking the conference organizers for extending an invitation to address you during your important annual deliberations. I come before you today not as an expert on environmental matters, but[Read More…]
Our planet is radically changing and this requires a radical rethink by all of us. It requires an economic, social and environmental revolution. Each day we delay bold climate action, sea levels continue to rise, forests continue to burn in record-breaking heat and the fossil fuel industry continues to put profits ahead of human health and safety. We need to[Read More…]
Metabolic Rifts Today. Beginning a new series by Ian Angus, on how contemporary science illuminates and extends metabolic rift theory in the 21st century. In the 1860s, Karl Marx wrote that capitalism “produces conditions that provoke an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life itself.”[1] By preventing the return of essential[Read More…]
Valuing Ecosystem Function higher than material things is the paradigm shift that determines whether we understand the meaning of our lives and survive or whether we remain ignorant and selfish and destroy our own habitat trying to gain more wealth or more power. If we reach this level of understanding, not only can everyone live on the Earth but the[Read More…]
We are living at the cusp of a sixth planetary extinction, possibly with the totality of the Permian Triassic. The primary culprits are the fossil fuel and related extractive industries. This essay will offer a solution by making the case for a transnational 100% Death Tax; the purpose being to demonetize ownership and control over these industries. XXXXX Our generation[Read More…]
What will the world’s sprawl of human beings look like in every major urban world centre in the next ten, fifty or one hundred years? Whichever way the world will wend, it all has something to do with that mythical search for the so-called Good Life. But how is humanity’s never-ending ethereal search for the so-called ‘Good Life’ now most[Read More…]
Zapatista women taking notes at ConCiencias. Photo credit: David Meek Below images of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and a many-headed hydra consuming humanity, sit two groups. To the right, facing a stage, are approximately 200 delegates of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), seated as a homogenous block. Wearing black ski masks, they furiously take notes. To the left, 300[Read More…]
My girlfriend Janet Ward started a food bank with a few thousand dollars from a religious leader and a small walk-in closet. Now that very same food bank puts out more than a million meals a year. This is more than a $million US dollars a year worth of food for people who would otherwise starve or partially[Read More…]
“My own little world Is what I deserve ‘Cause I am the only child there is. A king of it all The belle of the ball I promise I’ve always been like this. Forever the first My bubble can’t burst It’s almost like only I exist. Where everything’s mine If I can keep my mouth shut tight, tight,[Read More…]
The White Man’s High-Rises, Like Deadly Noxious Weeds, Grow Everywhere in the New World Photo: Peter Rae This Canadian writer has been married to a lovely ‘Sydney Girl’ now for some forty years and, lo, though having mostly lived those years with her abroad in Canada and the United States, has nevertheless endeavoured to return to his common-law relationship[Read More…]
Many thanks to Pablo Solón for his insightful essay on this important alternative to the catastrophic juggernaut of industrial modernity. Having spent so much of my life interacting and working with a land-based, indigenous society in a mountainous region very distant from the Andes—Ladakh, in the Trans-Himalaya—I was struck by how the philosophy of Vivir Bien, or BuenVivir as it is[Read More…]
The White European conspiratorial model of constant, unbridled growth and expansion, vigorously exported and aggressively promoted throughout the New World, is a form of sheer madness: mentally, culturally and spiritually. It knows no allegiance to any one country, people or way of life other than to growth and expansion for their own sake and the aggrandizement of but a few.[Read More…]
That pollution is bad for our health will come as a surprise to no one. That pollution kills at least 9 million people every year might. This is 16 percent of all deaths worldwide – 3 times more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, and 15 times more than all wars and other forms of violence. Air pollution alone is[Read More…]
As this article goes to print, Globovision TV quotes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announcing the launch of a new cryptocurrency, the “Petro Oro”. It will be backed by precious metals. The launch of the new cryptomoney is scheduled for the next week. No details of the new offering are available at this point. “I do not want to rush things,[Read More…]
This luxury 24 storey high rise building represents an assault on the heart of Mumbai. This is in Mahim geographically the heart of the metropolis as Mahim connects the island city with the suburbs. The skyscraper is an eyesore amidst low-rise housing but more than that it has come up on the bus depot of the BEST Undertaking .[Read More…]
In Rojava, a region in Syria also known as North Kurdistan, a groundbreaking experiment in communal living, social justice, and ecological vitality is taking place. Devastated by civil war, Syria is a place where a cessation of hostilities often seems like the most that can be hoped for. But Rojava has set its sights much higher. What started as a[Read More…]
Tucked within the pages of the January issue of the ‘Agriview’, a monthly farm publication published by the State of Vermont, was a short survey from the Department of Public Service (DPS). Described as an aid to the Department in drafting their “Ten Year Telecom Plan”, the survey contains eight questions, the first seven of which are simple multiple-choice queries[Read More…]
Millions of people die prematurely of indoor pollution and other consequences of energy poverty. But there is a way to empower the powerless: with renewable energy microgrids and decentralized technologies. “Power to the people,” the activists chanted in the 1960s. The revolutionaries of yesteryear never dreamed of the scientific and technological innovations that could light up distant shelters and communities in the[Read More…]
Democrats are stunned by Donald Trump’s lack of culpability for racist rhetoric, Twitter tantrums, and international insults. They shouldn’t be. They’re the party of “It’s the Economy Stupid.” They should know that if a president inspires a bull market, creates a few jobs, and grows the GDP, he can “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” without[Read More…]
It is possible to feed more than 9 billion people with organic production methods with a small increase in the required crop acreage and with decreased greenhouse gas emission. But this assumes considerable reduction in food wastage and in the quantities of feed grown to animals. That is the conclusion in the paper Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with[Read More…]
“Glory be to God for dappled things” — Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty “The big conversation we need within government has still not begun.” George Monbiot responding to UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s new environmental proposal, very much echoing the essential message embedded in Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’… which focuses on Care for Our Common Home. The punchline to this piece —[Read More…]
People yearn for alternatives to industrial agriculture, but they are worried. They see large-scale operations relying on corporate-supplied chemical inputs as the only high-productivity farming model. Another approach might be kinder to the environment and less risky for consumers, but, they assume, it would not be up to the task of providing all the food needed by our still-growing global[Read More…]
I’ll be the first to admit that I have lived high on the hog for parts of my life. I have traveled to Europe and the Caribbean numerous times each. I was on a huge cruise ship coming back to the USA from France when I was a child. I’ve flown back and forth across the USA for work and[Read More…]
The Belgian city of Ghent plays host to a broad range of projects and initiatives around the commons. But it has yet to adopt a model which really places a commons-focused approach and logic at the core of its institutions and processes. Recent work undertaken by experts on the commons provides a roadmap for the city to re-imagine and reconfigure[Read More…]
Co-Written by Jason W. Moore & Raj Patel Settled agriculture, cities, nation-states, information technology and every other facet of the modern world have unfolded within a long era of climatic good fortune. Those days are gone. Sea levels are rising; climate is becoming less stable; average temperatures are increasing. Civilization emerged in a geological era known as the Holocene. Some[Read More…]
Each day, we can see new evidence that the economy fails to serve people or planet. Stewart Wallis, former executive director of the New Economics Foundation, speaks with Tellus Senior Fellow Allen White about how to galvanize action for a new economy. You began your career in business but have since become a strong advocate of a new economic paradigm. What shaped this[Read More…]
To have a viable human future on this overstressed planet, it is essential that we build a solidarity economy that seeks material sufficiency and spiritual abundance for all in balance with a living Earth. We must join in common cause to build local relationships of caring and equitable sharing across the lines of race, religion, and class. Strong and healthy[Read More…]
59% of Indians, or 781,261,099 men and women in India, are of working age, that is to say, over the age of 20. India has 394600000 acres of cultivable land and 196250791 acres of forests, a total of 590850791 acres of land where man and animals may stay and live. India thus has a labour availability, that is to[Read More…]
Fifteen thousand scientists have issued a dire warning to humanity about impending collapse but virtually no-one takes notice. Ultimately, our global systems, which are designed for perpetual growth, need to be fundamentally restructured to avoid the worst-case outcome. For a moment, the most important news in the entire world flashed across the media like a shooting star in the night[Read More…]
The bad news streaming through our media in 2017 has been relentless. However it doesn’t tell the full story. Beyond the headlines, there have countless amazing social movement struggles in different regions of the world that deserve to be celebrated. Here are ten stories showing that people power works: 1. El Salvador bans mining In a classic David and Goliath[Read More…]
“Forty percent of the United States drains into the Mississippi. It’s agriculture. It’s golf courses. It’s domestic runoff from our lawns and roads. Ultimately, where does it go? Downstream into the Gulf.” —Sylvia Earle Our civilization is headed for a downfall, to be sure, in part due to the massive gulf between our hopes for the future and the omnipresent[Read More…]
The holiday period provides us with a unique opportunity to express the new awareness that must inform a less commercialised and sharing-oriented world. Rather than spending all our time partaking in conspicuous consumption, why don’t we commemorate Christmas by organising massive gatherings for helping the poor and healing the environment? At this time of year, our overconsuming lifestyles in[Read More…]
These are notes from a short lecture given at Nottingham University on 28th November 2017. Click on the images to enlarge them. 1 Production Increase During the 17th and 18th centuries the rise of mercantile power, colonialism and a slave economy was associated with the development of the idea that “improvement” meant production growth and was an indicator of a[Read More…]
The economist Branko Milanovic recently wrote a blog post titled “The illusion of degrowth in a poor and unequal world.” He penned it, he says, following a conversation he had with a proponent of degrowth. As it turns out, that proponent was me. First, let me say that I have a lot of respect for Milanovic’s work on inequality. [Read More…]
Any sensible government must learn to unleash the energy of its people and get them to perform instead of trying to get a bureaucracy to perform ―Verghese Kurien, I Too Had a Dream Tackling poverty requires an approach that must start with the people themselves and encourages the initiative, creativity and drive from below. The strategy must be at the[Read More…]
Bitcoin mining – the mechanism of creating Bitcoins and approving transactions on the blockchain – consumes prodigious amounts of electricity due to the use of a ‘Proof of Work’ cryptographic algorithm. While some Bitcoin is mined using clean energy (hydropower and geothermal energy, mainly) most Bitcoin is mined using coal, because coal power is both ubiquitous and cheap. Unfortunately,[Read More…]
The Seven Social Sins of the World: Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Knowledge without character Commerce without morality Science without humanity Worship without sacrifice Politics without principle — given by Mohandas Gandhi to his grandson Arun shortly before his assassination BITCOIN AND BLOCKCHAIN The world is on fire lately with the exponential growth of Bitcoin and other electronic cryptocurrencies. While[Read More…]
The present-day education reformers believe that schools are broken and market solutions are the only remedy. Many of them embrace disruptive innovations, primarily through online learning. There is a strong belief that real breakthroughs can come only through the transformative power of technology or the invisible hand of the market. However, findings suggest that this strategy has not lived up[Read More…]
by Francis Thicke, with an introduction by Steven Gorelick The organic food movement suffered a major setback recently, when the US National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) voted in favor of allowing hydroponically-grown products to receive the “organic” label. This decision should not have come as a surprise to those who have watched the organic movement steadily taken over by big[Read More…]
When ideas fail, words come in very handy. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe We live in an age when noisy posturing too often substitutes for reasoned debate and brash opinion trumps hard fact. The thread of the argument often disappears in a blizzard of gee-whiz statistics, acronyms, and catch phrases in interviews with eminent folks of all kinds. Yet the[Read More…]
The Labour Party in the UK, which has a good chance of taking political power at the next election, has been involved in a process of policy development which involves taking up ideas from the commons movement and is focused around the revival of and protection of commons. In one week I have now been to three public events commemorating[Read More…]
Earlier this summer, a paper published in the journal Nature captured headlines with a rather bleak forecast. Our chances of keeping global warming below the 2C danger threshold are very, very small: only about 5%. The reason, according to the paper’s authors, is that the cuts we’re making to greenhouse gas emissions are being cancelled out by economic growth. In the coming[Read More…]
Within alternative movements there is much interest in introducing local currencies and they have been central elements in many Transition Towns and other initiatives. Unfortunately I think most of these have been quite misguided, failing to grasp the power a local currency can have, and not likely to make a significant contribution to goals such as town sustainability and resilience.[Read More…]
Since the breakup of the Soviet bloc and China’s turn toward free markets, many economists have pronounced an “end of history,” where capitalism reigns supreme as the ultimate form of economy. Perhaps “there is no alternative” to a globalized neoliberal economy, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher often said. Indeed, free markets in which individuals compete to get what[Read More…]
The global energy system is in a state of flux. Renewables are experiencing rapid deployment and steep pricefalls. A growing portion of global energy is provided by electricity. There’s a slow, but apparently inexorable move away from coal in China. And there’s a surge in natural gas and oil production in the US. These are just some of the insights[Read More…]
“The only choice left to us is to decide how much worse we are willing to let things get. We still have time to save, or restore, a large part of the gentle and benevolent environment that has made our lives possible. We can’t, however, do it easily. We can’t do it at all without at the same time making[Read More…]
The staff at the nonprofit organization HullCoin has done something very unusual in the city of Hull in northeast United Kingdom. They’ve launched their own local cryptocurrency — programmed on top of Bitcoin to be issued by nonprofits and social institutions — as a way of combating financial exclusion and other problems that are at the root of poverty. Residents of Hull can earn[Read More…]
The difference between debt and sovereign money is that debt has to be paid back, with interest, but sovereign money does not, though it can be taxed out of circulation by the local government if we have minted too much of it. 60 central banks got together recently to discuss the algorithms for creating and managing a sovereign electronic[Read More…]
(International Day for the Eradication of Poverty –17 October 2017) This year marks the 25th anniversary of the declaration by the United Nations of 17 October as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. We have still a long way to go for making this world poverty free .One of the key strategies for eliminating poverty is focusing on women and girls. Achieving gender[Read More…]
“Revolution in society must begin with the inner, psychological revolution of the individual. Most of us want to see a radical transformation of the social structure…however radical that social revolution may be its nature is static if there is no inward revolution, no psychological transformation…However much and however wisely legislation may be promulgated, society is always in the process[Read More…]
We presently are using whatever we can, with little to no concerns for our children’s future, as they, on present trend have little prospect and less to no chance that their offspring will be able to survive. Yet the continuation of life is life’s primary concern. But not in civilisation, with the new socioeconomic system of global capitalism, education primary[Read More…]
News reports tell of the devastation left by a direct hit from Category 4 Hurricane Maria. Puerto Ricans already coping with damage from Hurricane Irma, which grazed the island just days before, were slammed with an even stronger storm on September 20, bringing more than a foot of rain and maximum sustained winds of at least 140 miles per hour.[Read More…]
“Rajya ke khajane par aapda-prabhaviton ka pehla haq hai…” Nitish is quoted as saying on the title page of the government of Bihar’s roadmap for disaster risk reduction 2015-2030.Considering 73% of Bihar is annually subject to floods, that is practically everybody. In the roadmap it says that a resilient village programme will be initiated in partnership with Panchayats and[Read More…]
Is it possible to historicize the commons, to describe the evolution of the commons over time? This is our first draft and preliminary attempt to do so. To do this we must of course define the commons. We generally agree with the definition that was given by David Bollier and others and which derives from the work of Elinor Ostrom[Read More…]
Glocorpital Global corporate capital has its ever stronger clutches on all economic sectors all over the world. As a precursor it forces such sectors into ‘modification’ so that it could take full control of them. The modifications are: exposing & subjecting them into rigid science & technology, research, standardization, sector subjugation, colossal product transformation (massive value addition), and giant marketization.[Read More…]
Since time immemorial, individuals have banded together into groups (tribes, prides, flocks, clans, companies, towns, religious congregations, nations, etc.) to serve the mutual aims of members. For the most part, they cooperate together, although in a hierarchical system with an organized “pecking order,” so as to compete against other groups similarly formed into collective units. Apparently, such a pattern has[Read More…]
In considering the essential problem of how to produce and distribute material wealth, virtually all of the great economists in Western history have ignored the significance of the commons—the shared resources of nature and society that people inherit, create and utilize. Despite sharp differences in concept and ideology, economic thinkers from Smith, Ricardo, and Marx to Keynes, Hayek, Mises and Schumpeter[Read More…]
Freelance workers are known to be intrepid by nature. But perhaps the bravest — and most vulnerable — among them are those who don’t have anyone to rely on for financial help, in case they become disabled or too ill to work. That problem appears to have been addressed in the Netherlands, thanks to a trio that came up with the[Read More…]
Changing the food system is the most important thing humans can do to fix our broken carbon cycles. Meanwhile, food security is all about adaptation when you’re dealing with crazy weather and shifting growing zones. How can a world of 7 billion—and growing—feed itself? Here are 13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system.
The word Decidim translated from Catalan means we decide, and it’s the name of Barcelona’s digital infrastructure for participatory democracy. One part functional database and one part political statement, organizers say Decidim is key to a broad digital transformation that is taking place in Barcelona — its institutions, markets, and economy. Organized by the Barcelona City Council, Barcelona’s citizens participate in a new digital[Read More…]
On July 9, New York magazine published “The Uninhabitable Earth,” a worst-case climate change scenario suggesting that our current human course may produce an unlivable future for Earth. A burst of media commentary and controversy followed, and it quickly became the most-read article in the magazine’s history. I’m often struck in conversations with friends and colleagues by the number who feel that[Read More…]
The theory that individual rights were inherited and endowed by nature as an inalienable right is a big assumption. In this scheme, preferential divine rights were extracted from natural law. The argument goes that in a state of nature we are not social creatures but rather co-exist in disorder and anarchy, therefore we must identify a natural right where the[Read More…]
“Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism?” -Max Horkheimer, from the essay “The Jews and Europe”, December 1939 Aren’t we all tired of capitalism? Haven’t most of us gotten sick of the drudgery, the monotony, the exploitation, sucking up to our bosses and management who pretend to care about the average worker? The[Read More…]
Everywhere along the shores of Planet Earth, endless development and the pressures of over-population continue to escalate a pitched battle among the people: It’s the Nimby’s versus the Yimby’s. So much so that this tale about what is happening on the North Shore of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada could be called The Battle of North Shore, Planet Earth. “Here’s[Read More…]
“History has not ended, and the need to understand its main features is as great as ever. Certainly, academics must stop teaching the Trivial Pursuit version of History.” — Chris Harman One prejudice we all have to face up to is the idea that the key features of successive societies and human history have been a result of an[Read More…]
The morning papers bring me the news that Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world. Actually he overtook Bill Gates for a few hours on Thursday as the richest person on earth as the Amazon share prices rose. Bill Gates regained his position as the richest person later in the day. So what the[Read More…]
Human beings are now waging war against life itself as we continue to destroy not just individual lives, local populations and entire species in vast numbers but also destroy the ecological systems that make life on Earth possible. By doing this we are now accelerating the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history and virtually eliminating any prospect of[Read More…]
A friend of mine from India tells a story about driving an old Volkswagen beetle from California to Virginia during his first year in the United States. In a freak ice storm in Texas he skidded off the road, leaving his car with a cracked windshield and badly dented doors and fenders. When he reached Virginia he took the car[Read More…]
In the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration, George Orwell’s 1984 soaredonto bestseller lists, as did Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which also hit TV screens in a storm of publicity. Zombies, fascists, and predators of every sort are now stalking the American imagination in ever-greater numbers and no wonder, given that guy in the Oval Office. Certainly, 2017 is already offering[Read More…]
The notion of economic growth as a regular, ongoing, self-sustained process no longer holds up to critical analysis. Even during what’s been called “The Glorious Thirty” – the years between the end of World War II and the 1974 oil crisis – growth occurred almost solely in industrialized countries and involved a minority of the world population; it was built[Read More…]
Resistance to the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants, climate change policy, and economic fairness has been fierce. But alongside these efforts—from flooding representatives’ phone lines to packing town hall meetings to marching in protest—it’s also important to begin the work of building alternatives to the systems that underlie the exploitation of people and planet. The understandable focus on Trump—with his[Read More…]
Concerning new paradigm of development, we already had discussion in 2013 on this topic. Further in 2015, a detailed and well researched paper has been written on this by PJ James and also articles have been written on this by KN Ramachandran and others. We need not rehash the same articles in this paper for study. What we intend to[Read More…]
Conceptualization of the Term the term development having many synonyms such as growth, evolution, expansion, enlargement, spread, progress, maturing, event, outcome, occurrence, phenomenon, happening, improvement and so on with shifting nuances depending on the contexts in which it is used came in to frequent use in political discussion with the origin and development of capitalism since the mid- eighteenth century.[Read More…]
The Government of India has decided to set up a committee to report back within six month with recommendations on how to regulate digital currencies. Digital currencies are cropping up on the internet to address some fundamental short comings of capitalism and world trade. Whilst some might want to allow only Rupee in India and reform the Reserve Bank[Read More…]
Capitalism is dead. Period. It can no longer serve humanity without destroying the world. As an economic system it is essentially bankrupt. All the lies and all the shoring up of the lies are not going to make a difference to the truth: pursuit of the path of Capitalism means doom not only for the poor of the world,[Read More…]
In the 1970s, the emphasis was on resource limits. The French term décroissance (later translated into English as degrowth) was used for the first time by French intellectual André Gorz. In his book Ecology and Freedom, published in 1977, he wrote that “lack of realism consists in imagining that economic growth can still bring about increased human welfare, and indeed that[Read More…]
During her 2015 campaign, Barcelona’s mayor Ada Colau promoted the idea of launching a local currency in her city. Colau viewed a local currency as a way of defending independent businesses and residents from rapidly-rising rents and benefits that are disproportionately reaped by corporate chains instead of local stores. Though the community currency failed to materialize in Barcelona, the city immediately[Read More…]
In a previous post titled Information, Energy and Human development, I concluded saying that we don’t know what will happen to our society if the planet will be overheated. I don’t have the answer, and maybe I will never have it, but I have surely been gaining new insights on what has been the influence of the climate on the[Read More…]
Albert Einstein said, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking, it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Changing our thinking requires an understanding of how our brains work. Scientific research has led to the discovery that our thinking brain is strongly influenced by our primitive emotional brain, known as the limbic system,[Read More…]
The current financial system cannot provide sufficient funds now to reduce unemployment or to alleviate the suffering of the 800 million across the world who are in poverty, close to starvation. The only remedy is for governments to provide debt free money without charging interest. This will not be easy. Governments will want to provide infrastructure. Roads, Transport, Hospitals, Schools[Read More…]
‘Houston, we have a problem’. On the one hand, there is growing acceptance among environmentally conscious people that rich nations and affluent regions of the global economy must dramatically reduce overall resource and energy consumption levels – that is, undergo a process of ‘degrowth’ – if humanity is to bring about a sustainable world order. On the other hand, we[Read More…]
Some believe that the commons are incompatible with commodity markets. Others claim that markets and commons may form mutually beneficial relations with each other. What are your own views on this issue? I think it is entirely possible for markets and commons to “play nicely together,” but only if commoners can have “value sovereignty” over their resources and community governance. [Read More…]
I see a lot of books presuming to explain what’s wrong with the economy and what to do about it. Rarely do I come across one with the consistent new paradigm frame, historical depth, practical sensibility, systemic analysis, and readability of Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth. Especially unique and valuable is her carefully reasoned, illustrated, and documented debunking of the[Read More…]
Some ten years ago, myself and my friend Pietro Cambi had the weird idea of “retrofitting” Pietro’s old Fiat 500, turning it into an electric car. To understand why we embarked in such a task, you have to consider that we were (and are) both “peak oilers”; but also we were (and are) both Italian and the Fiat 500 is[Read More…]
The following piece is extracted from a series of reviews on Common: An Essay on Revolution in the 21st Century, a book by Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, from which Martin O’Shaughnessy summarizes the authors´ nine political propositions: In an earlier post (here), I summed up Dardot and Laval’s position on how we should think the common. What I want to do[Read More…]
The world is now facing an unprecedented emergency of hunger and famine, with a record number of people requiring life-saving food and medical assistance in 2017. Since the start of this year, the largest humanitarian crisis since the end of the second world war has continued to unfold, while the international community has failed to take urgent commensurate action. The[Read More…]
A decade or two ago, many in India’s development community acted with the best of intentions, but without the best of evidence. If households lack clean water—help build wells ; if people suffer ill health—set up health services; if the poor lack capital to start businesses, give them credit. But the actual reality is not simple, it is very[Read More…]
To survive and live well we must reduce our population back to 2 billion as it was 80 years ago. Why did we allow our world population to keep growing to an unsustainable 7.4 billion, and passing on to our children the task of feeding and managing 9 billion people on a planet of degrading soils, acidifying and rising oceans[Read More…]
Angela Merkel, in her congratulatory message to Donald Trump after his election victory, struck a reminder of the values connecting Germany and America: “democracy, freedom and respect for the law and the dignity of man.” Merkel alluded to the so-called Wertegemeinschaft, or community of values, that many politicians and citizens of Western countries frequently invoke. The term not only implies[Read More…]
Maybe not now. But that’s what he could well become. Pope Francis’ Encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home” recognizes the incredible damage being done to climate change and biodiversity. Few realize how strong his beliefs are and the unused power of persuasion he has. Here’s 10 ways that power could be used. 1. Francis could call for a[Read More…]
The United Nations is currently preparing a world conference 5-7 June 2017 devoted to the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal N° 14: Conserve and sustainable use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. Non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the U.N. are invited to submit recommendations for the governmental working group which is meeting 24 to 27 April[Read More…]
What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy can’t grow for ever. But what is a steady-state economy? Why it is it desirable or necessary? And what would it be like to live in?[Read More…]
Today is Ambedkar Jayanti. It would be appropriate to take a re-look at Ambedkar’s idea of nationalism in the face of virulent Hindutva nationalism in India and also on the global context
In late 2015, the world agreed to limit the global temperature rise to “well below 2C”. Ever since the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change, scientists, think tanks and policymakers have been scrambling to define exactly what meeting this temperature limit will mean in policy and investment terms. A new report released this week by the International Energy[Read More…]
(CNS): The eight Istanbul Principles, adopted in 2010 by over two hundred civil society organisations (CSOs) from 82 countries, constitute a statement of common values and approaches to guide CSOs’ work. Seven years down the line, civil society has made strides in improving their effectiveness and accountability. However, progress in realizing Istanbul Principles in CSO practice, depends largely on[Read More…]
While we mourn the tragedy that fear, prejudice and ignorance “trumped” in this election, now is the time to go deeper and broader with our work. There is a growing recognition that the scary situation we find ourselves in today has deep roots. To better understand what happened – and why – we need to broaden our horizons. If we[Read More…]
Congratulations, you won—you are the last and richest person on Earth. In the security of your sunless underground bunker, you will be the last to die in a dying Earth’s paroxysm of fire and flood. In a recent column for YES! Magazine, Chuck Collins, “born on third base” social activist and commentator, has a message for the superrich who are[Read More…]
It’s a familiar story. On his final journey toward Jerusalem, Jesus stops in Bethany to eat at the home of Simon, a leper. A woman enters with an alabaster jar of expensive ointment; she breaks the jar and pours the ointment on his head. Her gesture invokes the fury of some of those present. The ointment was worth a year’s[Read More…]
Let’s hear the alarm that our climate system is sounding, loud and clear. Let’s prove that we are rational beings (as Aristotle, possibly the greatest philosopher of Ancient Greece, famously claimed). Rationality today doesn’t mean exploring options for colonizing another planet, it means an unprecedented journey into our own survival on planet Earth: Apollo-Earth.
Agriculture in our country today is in a profound crisis. Wherever we look we see the evidence of this: static or falling crop yields, crop failures due to too little or too much rainfall, rampant diseases and pests and wild animal attacks, loss of crop and domestic animal biodiversity, soil erosion, deforestation, falling water tables, water-logging and soil salinisation, chemical[Read More…]
Behold today’s edition of Empire’s End—the biggest, best-ever 24/7 reality TV show! It’s been decades in preparation, with a budget in the trillions, a cast of billions! Its hero-villain is far more colorful and pathetic than Tony Soprano or Walter White. One day he and his team of oddball supporting characters appear to be winning bigly; the next, they’re crashing[Read More…]
What is “value” and how shall we protect it? It’s a simple question for which we don’t have a satisfactory answer. For conventional economists and politicians, the answer is simple: value is essentially the same as price. Value results when private property and “free markets” condense countless individual preferences and purchases into a single, neutral representation of value: price. That[Read More…]
I’m at the home of one of the greatest living intellectuals on earth. In the cold, windy Copenhagen weather as we ring the bell John Scales Avery opens the door and welcomes me and my friend John Graversgaard warmly into his home. He serves us coffee and we talk. I’m stunned by his humility and breadth of knowledge. John Avery[Read More…]
As Transition Network turns 10, Rob Hopkins looks back to when it all began… This month represents the 10th anniversary of the founding of Transition Network. That’s Transition Network the organisation you understand, not the network of Transition groups which the organisation was set up to support. We thought that as we begin this anniversary month, it might be good[Read More…]
I ran into my friend Rick the other day in a small town near our homes in northern Vermont. He was just coming out of the bookstore, holding a pink plastic bag that, I would soon learn, contained a dozen eggs from his flock of free range hens. After a bit of small talk, Rick asked, “you don’t by any[Read More…]
A new publication by The Great Transition Initiative provides an inspiring vision of a more equal, vibrant and sustainable civilisation. From STWR’s perspective, all that it lacks is a sufficient focus on the critical needs of the very poorest citizens—which could ultimately forge the global solidarity needed to bring that new world into being. ‘Journey to Earthland’ is a recently[Read More…]
It’s not often that a scientist gets to use the words love, creativity, and wisdom in a paper, especially when writing about economics. Perhaps that’s because economics, the dismal science, is obsessed with dismal systems – make that abysmal systems, relative to need. To be clear, I’m not speaking of the specific policies of the US, the EU, China, the[Read More…]
As a developed set of social practices, techniques and ethical norms, permaculture has a lot to say to the world of the commons. This is immediately clear from reading the twelve design principles of permaculture that David Holmgren enumerated in his 2002 book Permaculture: Principles and Practices Beyond Sustainability. It mentions such principles as “catch and store energy,” “apply self-regulation[Read More…]
What is at the heart of the problems erupting worldwide? Is anything good emerging from these multiple crises? Can a new system grow from within the old one? Is it already here, visible and thriving? These questions are addressed by Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Niaros in this report, Value in the Commons Economy, co-published by Heinrich Böll Foundation and the[Read More…]
After he moved to London in his early 20s, Luke Howard became obsessed with the weather. Howard had a day job running a pharmacy business in the 1790s and early 1800s, but he spent a lot of his spare time staring at the sky. He collected a set of makeshift weather instruments—glass thermometers; a hygrometer (to measure moisture in the[Read More…]
In last week’s essay I used the phrase “hard-nosed optimism” to describe the attitude needed now as “an alternative to the lies of divisive bullies who take advantage of the elites’ failures in order to promote their own patently greedy interests.” This is the optimism Antonio Gramsci probably had in mind when he coined the memorable phrase, “Pessimism of the[Read More…]
One-third of all food produced worldwide is wasted, according to the United Nations. The U.K. is no exception, with 15 million tons squandered each year. But while a proliferation of food waste apps hope to combat the problem through technology, FoodCycle is tackling it by serving up hot meals to those who need it — along with providing a place[Read More…]
The human species cannot exist in perpetuity on the earth unless it lives in biological balance with the life around it. Running a net deficit drawdown of the earth’s fertility will not work. Is it not strange that children can understand this statement but world leaders cannot? Ten thousand years in the past, the earth existed in a condition[Read More…]
Money creation, like alchemy, is shrouded in ambiguous language and yields eternal wealth! For most of history these secrets have been used to empower sovereigns to spend money without the painful business of taxing or borrowing. Those foolish enough to try to grasp it with their rational minds are befuddled by unexpected politics, propaganda and paradoxes. In modern times this[Read More…]
One after another, the executive orders roll down from the top office of the land—orders that dismantle health coverage and launch the building of a wall while demolishing efforts at climate protection and access to birth control. And then a new set—excluding from the United States desperate refugee families from seven Muslim countries. That was just in week one. Each[Read More…]
